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Varun Chakaravarthy’s five-wicket haul and Shreyas Iyer’s 79 helped India beat New Zealand by 44 runs within the 2025 Champions Trophy. India will face Australia within the semi-final.
Varun Chakaravarthy led India to a shocking win on his CT debut. (AP Picture)
Varun Chakaravarthy‘s five-wicket haul and Shreyas Iyer’s 79 (98) shadowed equally exemplary performances from Matt Henry (5/42) and Kane Williamson 81 (120) to assist India beat New Zealand by 44 runs within the final group-stage match of the 2025 Champions Trophy on the Dubai Worldwide Cricket Stadium.
Having gained all three matches within the league stage, India have sealed a first-place end in Group A and can now play Australia, the second-place workforce in Group B within the semi-final on the identical floor on Tuesday. New Zealand and South Africa will recreate the 2015 World Cup semi-final fixture in Lahore on Wednesday.
India’s spin-heavy bowling assault carried out as designed from the primary over. Mohammed Shami and Hardik Pandya confirmed indicators of battle with the brand new ball and the additional spinner, Varun Chakaravarthy, confirmed indicators of nerves by kicking a ball to the boundary on his Champions Trophy debut.
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However Pandya’s knack for making a selected plan got here to fruit took out Rachin Ravindra within the fourth over off a great bouncer and a mistimed uppercut. Axar Patel took a great catch at deep third to clean off the Phillips first-innings euphoria too and India regarded like they had been house once more.
Chakaravarthy appeared extra settled with the ball in hand too. Will Younger and Williamson didn’t look settled towards him in any respect and it took him simply 9 deliveries to get an under-edge to stumps off the previous.
A 44-run partnership between Williamson and Daryl Mitchell adopted nevertheless it all the time regarded like they had been doing what India had been permitting them to do, as a substitute of the opposite approach round. Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja changed Chakaravarthy and Axar for a bit and floodgates opened: Mitchell misplaced the battle towards the left-arm spinner and Latham to the finger spinner.
Chakaravarthy was too good for the lower-middle order and took 4 wickets within the second half of his spell. Williamson tried to do every part on his personal — nearly an excessive amount of as a result of he suggested Michael Bracewell to not overview an LBW resolution towards Chakaravarthy which confirmed not-out within the replays.
It was apparent the previous skipper couldn’t strike the stability between working the sport and absorbing stress and it took only one smartly-pitched turner from Axar within the forty first over to get him stumped. Chakaravarthy accomplished his fifer earlier than Kuldeep gift-wrapped it within the forty sixth with William O’Rourke’s wicket.
Within the first innings, New Zealand’s pacers had been capable of make a lot better use of the early motion out there on the pitch. Rohit Sharma put Matt Henry below stress by manufacturing early boundaries however the pacer’s sharp nip-backer labored effectively towards Shubman Gill, catching him LBW plumb in entrance within the third over.
A short, dreamy Rohit-Virat Kohli partnership adopted however quickly, the skipper was crushed on the pull by Kyle Jamieson’s tempo and he bought caught by Will Younger contained in the circle for 15 (17). 9 balls later, Kohli, in his three hundredth ODI, tried to slash the bones out of a large ball from Henry and ended up falling within the Glenn Phillips lure: the agile all-rounder flew to his proper to catch a one-handed blinder, arguably the catch of the 12 months to this point.
Iyer and Axar bought caught in to do the alternative of dreamy. Their 98 runs collectively had been scruffy, typically laborious to look at, however fairly essential towards Mitchell Santner’s sensible rotation of his bowlers.
Axar took a specific liking to the left-arm spinners, Iyer intentionally didn’t let pacer O’Rourke settle and understood his variations whereas each collectively smacked Michael Bracewell (fully ignoring his four-wicket haul within the final match towards Bangladesh).
Nevertheless, New Zealand exploited the duo’s strengths towards them, as Rachin Ravindra discovered Axar’s high edge within the thirtieth over earlier than O’Rourke’s short-ball barrage broke by means of Iyer’s approach within the thirty seventh. Iyer, who struck at over 160 towards the pacer, ended the sensible battle at an innings-best rating of 79 (98).
The ultimate 14 overs had been as a lot about New Zealand’s brilliance as India’s weaknesses. Santner had held a few of his overs again and instantly got here in to place a full cease on runs.
Rahul wilted below the mixed stress of ending and holding the innings intact, edging one behind towards the spinner for 23 (29). Ravindra Jadeja and Pandya, the extra designated finishers, hit Bracwell for 11 within the forty first over however the subsequent 4 overs yielded solely 17 runs. Jadeja fell attempting to transform one other tight over from Henry, slashing to level for Williamson to do a Phillips.
Jamieson and Henry went hard-length and on-the-body towards Pandya, the tactic that’s turning into too apparent, and he might handle simply 5 runs within the forty seventh and forty eighth overs.
The previous overthought a bit within the forty ninth over and Pandya managed to choose a couple of boundaries off his slower ones however Henry confirmed extra composure, conceding simply 5 runs and taking two wickets within the fiftieth. It took him to 5 wickets within the innings, making him the primary to attain that towards India within the Champions Trophy.
Pandya confirmed one other one among his vulnerabilities: on a few events, he simply didn’t run on balls that would have gotten India simple doubles, in an obvious try to retain strike away from tailender Shami in any respect value. As he didn’t hit any boundaries on the final eight deliveries, it made a distinction of at the least 5 runs to the overall — which might’ve value the Males in Blue and may achieve this on one other day.
- Location :
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE)