Champions Trophy: India reaches final after defeating Australia
#News Bureau March4,2025
India reached the final of the Champions Trophy. It defeated Australia by 4 wickets in the semi-final on Tuesday. Virat Kohli’s 84 and Shreyas Iyer’s 45 helped India reach the target of 265 runs. Australia had a poor innings and dropped catches of Rohit Sharma twice and Kohli once.
Earlier, Steve Smith made 73 and Alex Carey made 61. Australia were cruising towards a big target but came under pressure after Steve Smith was bowled by Mohammed Shami on 73 and Glenn Maxwell was dismissed by Axar Patel. Carey was run out on 61 due to a brilliant display of fielding by Shreyas Iyer.
On the basis of disciplined bowling, India bowled out Australia for 264 runs after being invited to bowl first. Mohammed Shami took 3 wickets for 48 runs, while Varun Chakraborty and Ravindra Jadeja took two wickets each. Steve Smith was the top scorer for Australia with 73 runs off 96 balls.
The Rohit Sharma-led team achieved the target of 265 runs in 48.1 overs. Apart from Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer played an important role by scoring 45, KL Rahul remained unbeaten on 42 and Hardik Pandya scored 28 runs.
Shreyas missed out on a half-century and was dismissed after scoring 45 runs with the help of three fours off 62 balls. Despite Shreyas’s dismissal, Kohli remained at the crease and took India close to victory.
Kohli was moving towards a century but lost his wicket while trying to play a big shot on the ball of Adam Zampa.
Virat’s magic!
Virat Kohli performed brilliantly throughout the innings. Wickets kept falling from one end and he stood firm at the other end. Kohli was out after scoring 84 runs when India was close to victory. This is his 74th half-century in ODIs. Kohli became the first batsman to score more than 50 in an ICC ODI tournament. He scored more than 50 for the 24th time. Tendulkar had scored 50 or more runs 23 times in ICC ODI tournaments in 58 innings.
India have performed brilliantly since the start of the tournament, beating everyone. Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer are in top form, while Varun Chakraborty showed what he is capable of in just one match by taking 5 wickets against New Zealand in the last Group A match. However, captain Rohit Sharma has not yet been able to capitalize on his start.
Australia entered the Champions Trophy without many of their ODI World Cup-winning stars. Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Mitch Marsh, Josh Hazlewood and Marcus Stoinis were not available for various reasons. Travis Head played, who has been performing brilliantly against India in recent years. But he could not show any magic in Dubai in this tournament.
