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Indian cricket team players at the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy in Dubai. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri) Indian cricket team players at the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy in Dubai. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

One contestant has remained unchanged in the last four International Cricket Council (ICC) tournament finals before Sunday's Champions Trophyshowdownbet595, which includes two red-ball World Test Championship (WTC) finals, and the white-ball ODI and T20 World Cups. (Full Coverage | More Cricket News)

Now in their fifth consecutive final, it points to the kind of cricket that India have played consistently in recent years, against a variety of opposition, at different venues, all over the cricketing world.

Eight months after they won the ICC T20 World Cup, India, not unexpectedly, are in an ICC final once again, at the Champions Trophy 2025. And it was also known all along, that they would not be travelling to Pakistan.

However, the present controversy about them playing at one venue, a little difficult to understand.

As in the ICC ODI World Cup which they lost at home in 2023, they have been dominant yet again, with a comfortable unbeaten run to the Dubai final.

On Sunday, it will be India versus New Zealand with Rohit Sharma's side cautiously optimistic about their chances, having beaten the Kiwis comfortably in the group stage with a Varun Chakravarthy fifer playing a stellar role in the game.

But since then the Black Caps have played some outstanding cricket, with a rousing semi-final victory over South Africa, spearheaded by brilliant hundreds from Kane Williamson and young Rachin Ravindra.

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In the other semi-final, Indian hearts understandably beat a little faster at the prospect of having to play Australia, a team with a history of starting slowly at ICC events, but becoming increasingly difficult to beat as the tournament went on.

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More so, given India’s recent history against them in the WTC final at Lord's and the 2023 ODI World Cup at home, where we lost to them in the finals after a similar dominant, unbeaten run.

In both cases, one man had almost single-handedly taken the game away from India. And there he was again, first man in, in this semi-final, ominously settling into another one of his outstanding knocks.

Fortunately, India’s man of the moment,mgbet slots Varun Chakravarthy, had other ideas this time and produced a beauty to get rid of him just as Travis Head had begun to look dangerous.

And then came an astounding direct hit from the deep by Shreyas Iyer, another young man in form, to break a burgeoning partnership between skipper Steve Smith and Alex Carey.

As in the group game against the Kiwis, the two young men were to come good again, at crucial times to keep the team's momentum going.

And much to the delight of more than a billion fans, Virat Kohli anchored a successful run-chase for a second consecutive time, after the Pakistan match, with KL Rahul also looking good in a composed, unbeaten knock that got them comfortably over the line.

And it augured well for the final that the middle-order looked solid once again, with everyone contributing his bit.

The fact that Hardik Pandya, who not so long ago was playing in Indian white-ball sides as a specialist batter, now comes in at No.7 in this batting line up, speaks volumes of the depth that it has.

A depth that would be sorely needed in the final on Sunday and one that has allowed them to play four spinners in the XI, with three of their six regular bowlers playing as genuine all-rounders, reminiscent of the 1983 World Cup winning team under Kapil Dev, with each of them capable of winning a match off his own bat on a good day.

So it is onto the final now which looks all set to be an engrossing contest.

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Coming off their recent red ball successes against India, and bolstered by a dominant, in-form top order in this tournament, the Kiwis will be fancying their chances of laying to rest some of their own ghosts, in the final rounds of ICC tournaments this time.

Predictably, the British media led by former players has been hugely critical of India getting to play all its matches at a single venue, with the final also being played in Dubai instead of in Pakistan, a rant in which they were joined by current Aussie red ball captain Pat Cummins.

Insinuations have been made about India’s dominance at the ICC and how this would harm the sport in the long run. Much has been made of India’s so called ‘home advantage,’ in this day and age of constant video and data analysis which almost allows teams to script matches in advance.

All of which is a little draining to say the least, in a tournament where matches have been won fair and square by the team that played better than the other at the end of the day, as has always been the case in cricketing history down the ages.

Not to mention the fact that the naysayers seem to conveniently forget a time not so long ago, when the first three ODI World Cups starting with the Prudential Cup in 1975, were all played in England, no questions asked.

Let’s get on with the cricket gentlemen, and may the best team on the day, win.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author. The author is a veteran Wing Commander of the Indian Air Forcebet595, who has played Ranji Trophy for Services.