Pat Cummins Questions India’s ‘Home Advantage’ In Dubai

Australian skipper Pat Cummins and Former England captains Mike Atherton and Naseer Hussain raised questions about India’s advantage of playing all its games in Dubai during the ICC Champions Trophy while teams playing them fly in and out of Pakistan. 

Due to reservations by the Indian government against travelling to Pakistan, the Indian men’s cricket team refused to attend the ICC Champions Trophy in Pakistan. As a result, the ICC had to devise a hybrid model at the last minute and shift all of India’s games to Dubai. 

Since India is now playing all its games in Dubai, it didn’t have to select players for a variety of conditions; it was rather laser-focused on the conditions on offer in Dubai. Since the pitch in Dubai is known to be slow, India picked as many as five spinners in its squad coming into the Champions Trophy and only three frontline pacers.  

“Obviously, it does give them (India) a huge advantage playing on the same ground,” Australia’s full-time skipper Pat Cummins told Yahoo Australia. 

“They already look very strong and have the obvious benefit of playing all their games there.”

Atherton and Hussain expressed similar sentiments in their podcast. 

“What about the advantage India have in playing in Dubai, only in Dubai? Which seems to me to be a hard-to-quantify advantage, but an undeniable advantage,” said Mike Atherton in his conversation with Naseer Hussain on the Sky Sports Podcast.

“They’re playing at just one venue. They don’t have to travel either between venues or, you know, between countries, as a lot of other teams have to do. Therefore, the selection, you know, can focus in on the conditions in Dubai. And obviously, they’ll know where they’re playing their semi-final as and when they get through to that. That seems to me to be an undeniable advantage, but, you know, kind of hard to quantify how big an advantage.”

Hussain also remarked on the irony of the strongest team (on paper) in the competition having a home advantage in Dubai. 

“It is an advantage. So, the best team in the tournament have that advantage. And I saw a tweet the other day saying ‘Pakistan host nation, India home advantage.’ It sums it up really,” Hussain said. 

“They are at one place, one hotel, they don’t have to travel. They have one dressing room. They know the pitch, they have picked for that pitch. They were very smart in their selection. They probably knew what Dubai is going to be like. They picked all their spinners. there was a bit of debate with Indian media saying why don’t you have gone for an extra seamer? Why all these spinners? Now we can seen why.

“For example the other sides like England if they do get to the semis they have only one spinner (Rehan Ahmed is added as replacement of Brydon Carse), Pakistan have one frontline spinner. You can says that when the injuries came they should have change that and I have made that argument.

“Other teams will have to pick playing XIs for different conditions in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi and then they have to travel and adjust to those conditions.”

Indian spinners have bowled quite well in the two games so far, and the Men In Blue have already booked their berth in the semifinal, which will also be played in Dubai.

*Please Note: Pat Cummins later clarified on X that all the quotes are fake.