🏏ICC Champions Trophy 2025: India vs NZ, Match 12, Group A🏏 - Page 5

PITCH REPORT - Simon Doull is near the deck. He says that the weather is brilliant, with a high of 24 degrees Celsius and a low of 21 degrees Celsius. Adds that a gentle breeze is blowing across the ground. Mentions that the square boundaries measure 63 metres to one side and 71 meters to the other, while the straight hit is 76 meters. Dinesh Karthik joins Doull for the analysis. Karthik informs that this is a black soil wicket with the soil sourced from Pakistan. Further says that the pitch resembles those used in the last couple of matches, appearing on the drier side. States it offers assistance to spinners during the day but it gets better to bat under the lights

Maybe Arsdeep may play today. Oh he's not playing.

Rohit Sharma is fit and walks out for the toss

Mohammed Shami is marking is run-up

Pitch Report | Simon Doull and Dinesh Karthik: The leg side is shorter for the right handers, and it is a longer hit down the ground. Great weather out here, it is just 24 degrees. This is a black soil pitch from Pakistan, pretty dry and will help spinners in the beginning, but later on it comes on better as the lights come on. The economy rate of the spinners are better, but pacers have picked more wickets.

Rohit Sharma walking out for the toss, so that's a sign India might be playing a full strength team here

Toss won by - NZ

Bowl first

4 5 6 words

New Zealand have won the toss and have opted to field

Originally posted by: Savera84

🏏ICC Champions Trophy 2025: India vs NZ Match 12, Group A at Dubai on 02/03/2025 at 2:30 PM IST🏏

In-form India and New Zealand face off to see who they will meet in the semis

Both are exceptional ODI outfits, coming in with a string of wins to their name. Both will also already have one eye on their respective semi-finals, which quickly follow Sunday's game

Scroll down to the form guide section. Actually, no need, because, spoiler warning, both teams have WWWWW next to them going into this match. These are two exceptional ODI outfits in potentially title-winning form, deep and balanced thanks to the allrounders they possess. They're particularly well-suited to conditions at this Champions Trophy - particularly, perhaps, to those in Dubai where this contest will take place - thanks to their spin options and the variety of batting gears in their top orders.

There has also been, especially over the last five years and a bit, a lot of history between these two teams.

This should, for all those reasons, be a main-course kind of contest, but it's an appetiser in the context of where this Champions Trophy stands. India and New Zealand are both through to the semi-finals, and know exactly where and when their respective semi-finals will be played. All that remains to be decided is whom they'll face there, and it's unlikely there's a "preferred" opponent for either team, given it's a choice between South Africa and Australia.

With that in mind, and the short turnaround before the semi-finals - particularly in the case of India, who only have a one-day gap before their game on March 4 - Sunday night's contest may not necessarily be played at vein-throbbing intensity. There's a chance of big names resting, and also - as India's assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate suggested on Friday - of key bowlers not completing their full 10-over quotas.

There's one man whose intensity is never short of vein-throbbing when he's on the field, though, and he's set to play a very special match. Virat Kohli is set to play his 300th ODI, becoming the 22nd player and seventh from India to get to that landmark. Given how infrequently ODIs are now played, and given how far away Kohli's closest contemporaries are - Mushfiqur Rahim (274) and Rohit Sharma (272) are the only two to have played more than 250 - will he also be the last to get there?

Thanks RJ ji!

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New Zealand have won the toss and have opted to field

Daryl Mitchell n place of Conway