By Karan Agrawal 
New Zealand are all set to take on India in the final of the ICC Champions Trophy on March 9 in Dubai. The two teams will be facing each other in the final of an ICC ODI tournament after 25 years, having played in the final of the Champions Trophy ( formally known as Knockout Trophy) during the start of the millennium. Both India and New Zealand have by far been the best teams of the tournament, which is evident by the fact that there is little to choose between the two sides. Talking about the composition, both India and New Zealand have an in-form batting lineup at their disposal and comprise of quality spin attack with the likes of Mitchell Santner and Michael Bracewell holding fort for New Zealand with support from Glenn Phillips and Rachin Ravindra. On the other hand is the Indian spin quartet of Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, and Ravindra Jadeja, who could be the deciding factor, considering the fact that the pitch used for the India-Pakistan match is expected to be used for the final as well.
The Travel
New Zealand is the team that has travelled the most in the ongoing edition of the Champions Trophy, starting with the opening match in Karachi, followed by Rawalpindi, heading to Dubai to play against India and travelling back to Lahore to play the second semi-final against South Africa. In addition to that, none of New Zealand’s matches were washed out. Reacting to this, New Zealand’s head coach Gary Stead said, “There’s no doubt that coming here after Lahore – we had a full day of travel yesterday – takes it out of you a little bit.” “But we’ve got a couple of days now, a little bit of recovery and a little bit of planning and training towards the game. But I guess we’re deep into the tournament now, and sometimes it’s not always a lot of training that you need. It’s just getting your body and your mind right to compete in the final. That will be our key focus over the next two days.”
The Opinion
There has been a lot of chatter about India having an unfair advantage by playing all its matches in Dubai, with former players voicing their opinion about it. Stead downplayed the debate when asked about the same. “They’re not decisions that come across my desk anyway. For us, it’s something that we can’t control, so it’s really just getting on with it. Yes, India have played their four matches here. We’re lucky enough to have had one here against them. It was a good match, without us quite putting our best foot forward as well. Wherever you play, you just have to go up and be able to be better than them on the day, and that’s our focus,” Stead said.
The Conditions
Talking about the pitch and the need to adapt to the condition in order to asses what’s a par score on what is expected to be a slow wicket in Dubai Stead said “I think that’s just about adapting and working out on your feet what you think that par score is for the day.” “I think the danger is you come from scoring 360-odd in a game and you think you’ll do that again immediately and you go a little bit [too] hard. So, for us, it’s just working out what is the right tactics on the day, who we are faced up against as well, and then adapting to that.
“It’s also about communication between the batsmen in the middle and making sure they’re having good communications around who is the right player to take risks against and what that might look like.”