India's head coach, Gautam Gambhir, refutes all criticism regarding the team's venue in the ongoing Champions Trophy 2025. Since the Indian government didn't allow the Men in Blue to travel to Pakistan, the ICC had to shift a part of the tournament to Dubai, where they played all of their games. However, many players and experts called out the board for giving India an unfair advantage in the tournament.
During the press conference after the game against Australia, Gambhir slammed the criticism and said that India haven't been practicing on the stadium's pitch. Hence, they were never aware of the pitch conditions before the game started.
"I know there’s a lot of debate about the undue advantage. But what is an undue advantage? First, this is as much of a neutral venue for us as it is for any other team. I don’t remember which tournament we played in this stadium last time. We haven’t practiced here even for a day. We trained at the ICC Academy. The conditions there and here are completely different. Some people are just perpetual cribbers. So, I feel we didn’t have any undue advantage," said Gautam Gambhir at the presser.
Gautam Gambhir takes stand for Rohit Sharma
Gautam Gambhir was asked about Rohit Sharma's form and whether he should have thrown his wicket at that position, to which the head coach replied by saying it's a good thing that the captain is giving 'positive signals' to the dressing room.
"If your team plays with this kind of tempo, it just sends a positive signal to the dressing room that we want to be fearless and courageous. You evaluate with the stats; we evaluate with the impact. As journalists, as experts, you only look at the numbers, not the averages. But as a coach, as a team, we don’t look at numbers or averages. If the captain puts his hand up first, nothing is more interesting than that," said Rohit Sharma.
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