Dubai: Team India broke a jinx by overcoming Australia and marching into the Champions Trophy final on Tuesday evening.
The 4-wicket win, chasing down the 265-run target with 11 balls to spare, was the first time since the 2011 ODI World Cup that India had beaten bogey team Australia in the knockout stage of an ICC tournament.
The men in blue thus avenged three crushing defeats over the past decade – in the 2015 ODI World Cup semifinal, 2023 ODI World Cup final and 2023 World Test Championship final.
India await the winners of Wednesday’s second semifinal between South Africa and New Zealand. The final will be played at Dubai on March 9.
After Mohammed Shami (3/48) and spinners Varun Chakravarthy, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel combined to dismiss Australia for 264, India were down to 43/2 in 8 overs. Openers Shubman Gill (8) and Rohit Sharma (28) were back in the hut, but Kohli buckled down to business the way only he can while chasing a target.
The fact that Shreyas Iyer (45) was in fine nick and continued his run-scoring streak helped Kohli play the anchor role perfectly. Their 91-run partnership set a solid platform for KL Rahul (42 not out) and Hardik Pandya (28) to finish it off quite comfortably.
Kohli (84 off 98 balls) hit only 5 boundaries and ran plenty of ones and twos to frustrate the Australian attack, which missed some of their leading bowlers in the tournament.
Kohli holed in trying to push for victory, but he was the unanimous choice for the player of the match award.
Just to gauge his quality of batsmanship, this was his 68th half-century in chases. More than 8,000 of his 14,000-plus ODI runs have come when India were chasing targets.
Brief Scores
Australia 264 all out in 49.3 overs (Steve Smith 73, Alex Carey 61; Md Shami 3/48, Ravindra Jadeja 2/40, Varun Chakravarthy 2/49).
India 267/6 in 48.1 overs (Virat Kohli 84, Shreyas Iyer 45, KL Rahul 42 not out; Adam Zampa 2/60).
Result: India won by 5 wickets.
Man of the Match: Virat Kohli
Final: India vs South Africa vs New Zealand winner (Dubai, March 9).
