Follow UsSouth Africa’s David Miller blasted the International Cricket Council (ICC), organisers of the Champions Trophy 2025, for forcing his team to fly twice in a span of 24 hours between Pakistan and Dubai, ahead of the all-important semi-final clash against New Zealand.
“It’s only an hour-and-40-minute flight, but the fact that we had to do that was not ideal,” Miller was quoted as saying by Indian Express, after his 63-ball century was also not enough to take his team, as they could only score 312/9 and lost the game by 50-runs to bow out.
After their last group stage match against England, South Africa had to fly to Dubai in the early morning because they would have had to play India in the semi-final in two-days’ time and ICC wanted to give them preparation time. But then they flew back after it was confirmed that they would play New Zealand in Lahore.
Talking about the mental fatigue due to this uncertainty, Miller said, “It’s early morning, it’s after a game and we had to fly. Then we got to Dubai at 4:00 pm. And at 7.30 am we had to come back. It doesn’t make it nice. It’s not like we flew five hours, and we had enough time to recover and recuperate, but it was not an ideal situation.”
Despite Pakistan being given the hosting rights for the tournament, the Board of Control For Cricket In India (BCCI), refused to travel to Pakistan. ICC came up with a middle ground where, from 2025 onwards till the next Future’s Tour Program, India and Pakistan will play their ICC event matches in neutral countries if one of them is hosting the event.
