Tue Mar 04 07:30:00 UTC 2025: ## India Faces Australia in Crucial ICC Champions Trophy Semifinal

**Dubai, March 4, 2025** – India and Australia clash today in the first semi-final of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 in Dubai. Australia, winning the toss, elected to bat first. Travis Head and Cooper Connolly opened the innings for Australia, whose playing XI features Cooper Connolly replacing Matthew Short and leg-spinner Tanveer Sangha replacing Spencer Johnson. Sangha joins Adam Zampa as specialist spinners in the Australian side. India, who topped their group, remains unchanged from the team that played New Zealand, with Rohit Sharma showing continued faith in his starting eleven. This marks India’s 14th toss loss in the tournament.

Team India sported black armbands in tribute to Padmakar Shivalkar, a highly regarded left-arm spinner who passed away on Monday at age 84. Shivalkar never played for the national team despite his exceptional talent.

The match is a significant one for India, who aim to avenge their recent losses to Australia in ICC knockout matches. Since their 2011 World Cup quarter-final victory, India has a losing streak against Australia in these crucial encounters, including the 2015 World Cup semi-final, the 2023 World Cup final, and the 2023 World Test Championship final. While India did defeat Australia in a group match during the 2023 World Cup, the knockout stage has proven challenging.

Australia’s squad is weakened by the absence of key players Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Marsh, and Marcus Stoinis due to injuries or personal reasons. Despite these absences, Australia demonstrated their strength recently, chasing down a 352-run target against England in Lahore.

India’s playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, and Mohammed Shami.

Australia’s playing XI: Cooper Connolly, Travis Head, Steve Smith (c), Marnus Labuschagne, Josh Inglis (wk), Alex Carey, Glenn Maxwell, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Tanveer Sangha.

The winner of this semi-final will face the winner of the second semi-final between New Zealand and South Africa (March 5th in Lahore) in the Champions Trophy final on March 9th. Live updates and scores are available on this page.

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