Dubai [UAE], March 5 : Head coach Gautam Gambhir launched a scathing tirade against claims that India receives an undue advantage by playing at one venue while other teams have travelled to different locations throughout the tournament.
Former England cricketers Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton were among the first to point out that India had an advantage due to playing at one venue. Since then, there has hardly been a press conference at which players haven't been asked their opinion on tournament scheduling.
Due to the geopolitical situation, the Indian team didn't travel to the host nation, Pakistan, and played all of their matches in Dubai. According to fans and former cricketers, the decision gives the last edition finalists two massive advantages.
The first one revolves around selecting their squad according to just one ground against three venues in Pakistan. The second advantage is that India has a chance to be familiar with a venue, unlike other teams.
After India marched to the final with a four-wicket win over Australia, Gambhir quickly dismissed the idea that his side had received such an advantage. He went on to state in a hypothetical scenario that if India travelled to Pakistan, they would have still gone for two front-line spinners, considering the subcontinental conditions.
"First of all, this is as neutral a venue for us as it is for any other team. We have not played here. I don't remember which tournament we played in this stadium last. And in fact, we didn't plan anything like that. The plan was that if you pick two front-line spinners in the 15-man squad, then even if we played in Pakistan or anywhere, we would have picked two front-line spinners because it was a competition on the subcontinent. So, it was nothing like we wanted to set up a spinners' trap. If you look at it, we only played one front-line spinner in the first three matches," Gambhir said during the post-match press conference.
Gambhir went on to take an aim at "perpetual cribbers" and asked them to grow up while ruling out the probability of India receiving an undue advantage.
"We only played two front-line spinners in this match or the previous match. So, it was nothing like that. And there's a lot of debate about the undue advantage and all that. What undue advantage? We haven't practiced here even for a day. We're practicing at the ICC Academy. And the conditions there and here are 180 degrees different. If you look at the wickets there and here, the difference is between the ground and the sky. Some people are just perpetual cribbers, man. They've got to grow up. So, I feel that there was nothing like we had any undue advantage or we had planned something like that," he added.