Champions Trophy: David Miller backs New Zealand after ‘not ideal’ semifinal scheduling

David Miller said his team’s hop to Dubai and back ahead of t h e i r Champions Trophy semifinal defeat to New Zealand in Lahore was “not ideal”.

The tangled scheduling of the event came into question as Australia and South Africa both had to fly to Dubai from Pakistan ahead of the semi-finals. South Africa were there for less than 24 hours before jetting back again without playing a game. Australia stayed and lost in the last four to India.

The haphazard scheduling was a result of India playing all their games in Dubai after refusing to travel to Pakistan. “It’s only an hour and 40 minute flight, but the fact that we had to do that was not ideal,” Miller said after South Africa lost to New Zealand on Wednesday by 50 runs. South Africa made what was ultimately a wasted trip soon after defeating England in Karachi on Saturday. “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 still.” ‘IT IS WHAT IT IS’ Kane Williamson is too long in the tooth to get dragged into the debate over India getting to play the final in Dubai.

“It is what it is,” Williamson told reporters. “You know, it’s just not something we’re really looking too closely at. It’s about the cricket that we want to play, and we’ll take into account, obviously, the opposition, but be nice and smart come that final.”

• Artificial