Virat Kohli of India shares a joke with teammates Axar Patel during the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 (Photo by Francois Nel/Getty Images)
Its showdown time at the 2025 Champions Trophy as we get ready for the knockouts from Tuesday. India beat New Zealand in the last group stage match in Dubai on Sunday to top Group A while South Africa finished at number one on the points table from Group B after their thrashing win against England at Karachi. That would mean that the tournament favourites India clash with Australia in the first semi-final in Dubai on Tuesday while South Africa take on New Zealand in the second semi-final in Lahore on Wednesday.
RG analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the four semi-finalists and also looks at some keys insights ahead of the knockouts.
This will be a two-part feature. Part 1 will involve an analysis of India and Australia while part 2 will scrutinize South Africa and New Zealand.
India
India are the only team who has won all their three-matches in the tournament and have the momentum entering the knockouts. They have the best spin bowling unit in the competition and that gives them a massive edge against Australia in the first semi-final on turning conditions in Dubai. Varun Chakravarthy has been India’s most lethal wicket-taker in T20 cricket in the last one year and returned with a match-changing fifer against New Zealand on Sunday.
India then has a Chinaman (Kuldeep Yadav) and two left-arm orthodox all-rounders (Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja) to squeeze the runs in the middle overs. The Indian spinners have picked 16 wickets – the most for any team in the competition at an average of 26.12 and strike rate of 34.3 – again the best in the tournament!
Although India boasts of a formidable batting line-up, it is their bowlers who have won them all the three matches in the tournament. They restricted Pakistan and Bangladesh to less than 250 before defending 249 against New Zealand.
On the batting front, India has continued with the aggressive template in the powerplay with skipper Rohit Sharma taking the attack to the opposition bowlers in the first 10 overs. Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill have registered a hundred each while Shreyas Iyer has been brilliantly consistent since his return from the ODI series against England.
The only apparent weakness for India has been their scoring rate against spinners in the tournament – it is amongst the lowest in the competition.
Key Insights:
- Rohit Sharma has the second-highest strike rate in the powerplay (120.2) only after Travis Head in all ODIs since 2022.
- Shreyas Iyer has hammered 175 runs in just 130 deliveries at a scoring rate of 134.6 against pace in 2025.
- Varun Chakravarthy has bagged 20 wickets in 7 white-ball games for India this year at an average of 11.7, strike rate of 11.4 and economy of 6.15.
Australia
Rain continued to follow Australia at the Champions Trophy with two of their three group-stage encounters affected by the weather in this edition. While their big clash against South Africa at Rawalpindi was abandoned without a ball being bowled, their chase against Afghanistan in Lahore was also cut-short due to rain.
Australia entered the Champions Trophy with a massive handicap – they were without their three ace pacers in Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc. However, the batting came to the party big-time and we saw two (or one and a half courtesy the weather) dominating performances with the bat by the Australian top-order. They gunned down England’s 351/8 in Lahore breaking the record for the highest chase in an ICC tournament before getting off to a rollicking start in their pursuit of 274 against Afghanistan – Australia had rocketed to 109 for 1 in the 13th over before rain stopped play.
Australia have the highest batting average of 73.3 and strike rate (121.2) in the tournament. Australia have hammered 166 runs in the powerplay at a run-rate of 8.3 in the tournament. They blasted 90 against Afghanistan which is a record for the most runs in the first 10 overs at the Champions Trophy. Josh Inglis, Travis Head, Matthew Short, Marnus Labuschagne and Alex Carey have all made contributions with the bat and are striking well above 100.
The bowling is the weak-link for Australia. Ben Dwarshuis has been the pick of their bowlers with six wickets in two games at under run-a-ball! Australia have struggled to pick wickets in the middle overs (15-30) and have just made one breakthrough in these 15 overs in the two group-stage matches.
Key Insights
- Australia has defeated India in the knockout stage (quarter-finals/ semi-finals/ final) in their last three ICC meetings – the 2015 World Cup semi-final in Sydney, the 2023 World Test Championship final at The Oval and the World Cup final in Ahmedabad later that year. However, India had a 4-1 head to head in ICC knockouts against Australia from 1998 till 2011.
- Travis Head has a knack of raising his game in the big knockout matches against India. He hammered a match-defining 163 off just 174 deliveries in the WTC Final at The Oval before smashing 137 off 120 deliveries in the World Cup Final in Ahmedabad later that year.
Nikhil Narain is a die-hard cricket romantic, published author, and has worked for some of the leading digital websites and broadcasters in India and overseas. An alumnus of the London School of Economics, Nikhil's forte is using data and numbers creatively to weave interesting stories and revolutionize the way cricket statistics are generated and analyzed.
