With 11 balls left, India’s excellent hands helped seal a chase of 265 despite a strong effort from a weakened Australia in the first semi final of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 final will take place in Dubai, and India will be there after defeating a weak Australia team in an exciting first semifinal. But they didn’t win easily, and Australia can still reflect on a few moments that could have taken the match in different, intriguing directions.
The member of their lineup who most exemplifies those words was a key player, and ultimately, India’s quality and experience made the difference. An unexpected attempt at a big hit ended Virat Kohli’s innings at 84 after he had previously in the competition achieved one of his signature chase-controlling hundreds against Pakistan. But he had already amassed almost 8000 runs in ODI chases by that point, and he reduced this one to a more-than-manageable 40 off 44 balls.
KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya virtually sealed the deal before the latter left with India one hit away, meaning they just needed 33 of those balls. Rahul completed the chase with a six over long-on off Glenn Maxwell, just like he did in a similar chase during this teams’ 2023 World Cup match in Chennai.
Even with the late surge, India’s boundary total (16 fours and seven sixes) fell short of Australia’s (20 and eight), despite Rahul and Hardik hitting five sixes and three fours between them. They only faced 124 dots compared to Australia’s 153, and they ran 158 of their runs between the wickets compared to Australia’s 129, therefore their victory was based on busyness.
This was due as much to the fact that Kohli and his teammates—five other Indian batsmen reached the twenty-five-mark—moved the ball into gaps and ran as it was to the disparity in skill between the two bowling attacks, especially the spinners. Australia’s spinners finished the match with a dot-ball percentage of just over 39, while India’s spinners finished with precisely 50.
On a bone-dry pitch that promised plenty of turn, India persevered to their four-spinner strategy, but the surface was actually just slow and low. Though they lacked the ability to run through the opposition, India’s spinners maintained much greater control than their Australian counterparts, limiting the hitters’ scoring areas and keeping the stumps in play.
Despite this, Australia chose to bat and at several occasions threatened to overwhelm the opposition with a total of about 300. Three of their batsmen had innings that, on another day, may have won the game. However, all three were involved in their own dismissals and all three fell exactly when they appeared to be at their most threatening.
Travis Head, who was dropped by Mohammed Shami off his own bowling in the opening over of the game, struggled to adjust to the slow surface but once he did, he hammered the boundary, going from 1 off 11 balls to 39 off 32 to give India memories of Ahmedabad 2023. He then miscued a wrong’un to long-off after aiming big down the ground in response to Varun Chakravarthy’s debut delivery in any format, including the IPL.
Then, with a clever, proactive 73, Steven Smith put on half-century stands with Head, Marnus Labuschagne, and Alex Carey. He did this by skillfully modulating his bat face to whisk the spinners over midwicket, drive them through the covers, or launch them straight. He also liked to have a little luck. Axar Patel forced him to inside-edge a drive onto his stumps, but the bails held, and Shami also made a return catch off him, but with his left hand instead of his right.
Smith attempted to drill Shami between cover and mid-off after Australia had reached 198 for 4 in the 37th over, but he lost shape and missed a full-toss that struck the base of off stump.
Glenn Maxwell followed up a slog-swept six from Axar with a failed pull off a stump-bound skidder five balls later, costing Australia another crucial wicket. In just a few minutes, the game had shifted in favor of India.
However, Carey was still present and may have been playing the ultimate innings of the game. He counterattacked, finding open spaces in the outfield and attacking them without taking any half-measures, coming in at a critical moment when Australia was 144 for 4 and Ravindra Jadeja had just dismissed Labuschagne and Josh Inglis in quick succession. He set the tone with his first boundary off the sixth ball he faced, backing away to expose all three stumps and make space for Jadeja to loft over mid-off. The length didn’t quite allow him to middle the shot, but he went ahead knowing that no fielder was patrolling that boundary.
Accordingly, Carey had accelerated to 60 off 56 using sweeps, lofts over the covers, and reverse sweeps. However, with Australia seven down in the 47th over, just when it looked like he had to bat through the innings, he turned around for a risky second run and was caught well short by a brilliant direct hit from Shreyas Iyer two-thirds of the way back at backward square-leg.
With three balls left, Australia was bowled out for 264 as a result of all these incidents.
Despite the early exchanges suggesting otherwise, it was the kind of total that allowed India to pace their pursuit and not go looking for boundaries.
Perhaps an unwise shot under these circumstances, Shubman Gill danced down the track to dismiss Ben Dwarshuis with a striking short-arm jab before inside-edging on to his stumps later in the over while attempting to steer him fine.
Rohit Sharma, on the other hand, attacked the bowling as he usually does in the first powerplay and played an innings that was somewhat similar to Head’s: two spectacular hits, including a pulled six off Nathan Ellis; two missed opportunities by Labuschagne and Cooper Connolly, both of which were catchable but not completely straightforward; and then a dismissal off a risky shot, a sweep off a ball that was too full and too straight from Connolly.
After a tumultuous match up to that moment, Connolly was finally able to relax when India was 43 for 2 in the eighth over. He had opened for the injured Matthew Short earlier in the day, replacing him in Australia’s team. However, he had been dismissed for a nine-ball duck, which also included six consecutive plays-and-misses from Shami.
In his sixth over, Connolly could have been even happier when Kohli sent a leading edge flying towards Maxwell at a catching short cover while attempting to move his left-arm spin into the on side. Maxwell made a right dive but lost the one-hander. If things had gone their way, Australia might have had a chance, with Kohli at 51 and India at 134 for 2.
Aside from that, though, Kohli was making it appear quite simple by playing just traditional percentage strokes and managing to score more runs in a third-wicket partnership of 91 than Iyer, who was continually moving about his crease, frequently to scoop the ball over his shoulder. Even though Kohli only managed five fours overall—two off the spinners and one off Ellis stood out for the quickness of his footwork—he had little issue keeping the scoreboard going.
This was partially due to Australia’s spin attack limitations, which included three batting all-rounders or part-timers (Connolly, Maxwell, and Head), a legspinner (Tanveer Sangha) playing only his fourth ODI, and one proven frontliner (Adam Zampa), which forced them to give up singles to deep fielders. Smith had to guard the boundaries and let the singles fall away while he waited for an opening, especially considering the total he was defending.
India needed 131 from 142 balls when Zampa’s faster ball bowled Iyer, who was cutting to make room. However, considering their depth at bat, they were still strong favorites. They appeared to settle into a routine where Rahul took on the bowlers at the other end in partnerships of 44 and 47, while Kohli attempted to bat through the chase with Axar, who was now batting in his usual No. 5 position.
He fell in the most un-Kohli-like way just when everything was going according to plan and a century appeared to be Kohli’s to have. Earlier in the over, Rahul had smashed Zampa for a consecutive six, and India had a firm grasp on the needed rate. Kohli rarely chooses to try to hit a six, but on this particular day, he did. The ball probably turned less than he had anticipated, but he picked the wrong one, forcing him to hit straighter than he had intended, straight to the fielder at long-on. Even though Kohli is the most meticulous chaser in the world, he is susceptible to strange human impulses.
