Champions Trophy 2025 – Glenn Phillips confident NZ have resources to find success in slower Dubai

Perhaps more vitally, however, a run in Dubai gives New Zealand a chance to become familiar with this set of Dubai conditions. Most of their players will have played at this venue previously, of course. But these are substantially used surfaces following the ILT20 and India’s first two games, in which the surfaces were on the slower side.

Phillips feels New Zealand have the resources regardless.

“It comes down to the execution on pitches like this,” Phillips said. “We’ve got two really good spinners (Mitchell Santner and Michael Bracewell), and then allrounders in myself and Rachin Ravindra to be able to offer overs if we’re needed.

“And then we’ve got three high-quality pace bowlers. Matt Henry nips it on glass. And our two big tall boys (Kyle Jamieson and Will O’Rourke) that have got variable bounce and in Pakistan have been quite tough to play. I think that covers our bases quite nicely.”

“I think the beauty of Pakistan is every pitch we’ve played on has been significantly different to the last and I think that’s been great preparation for us coming over to Dubai, knowing that the pitch is going to be different again,” Phillips said. We’ve had a lot of different situations, we’ve had balls that have spun, we’ve had surfaces that have been flat and fast, and boundaries that are small.

“This ground presents us with a different challenge of being potentially a little bit slower, more void of grass and maybe slightly slower outfields. So I think we pride ourselves on trying to be as adaptable as possible.”

Phillips mistakenly initially thought there was no reserve day for the semi-final due to be held in Pakistan, which would have allowed the group-topper to progress to the semi-final more smoothly. But there is a reserve day for the semi-final in Lahore, and it is only after a no-result across two days that the topping of the group becomes relevant to progressing to the final.

He maintained, nevertheless, that there was incentive to finish at the top of the group by beating India.

“Finishing in the top spot goes with a great deal of confidence going into the semi-finals. At the end of the day we always, in a tournament like this, go out to win every game possible and momentum is a strange thing in cricket especially.”