South African batsman David Miller has opined that it was not pleasant to keep shuttling between Pakistan and Dubai for the Champions Trophy. Miller spoke about the inconvenience of travelling immediately after playing a match in Pakistan and then flying back again after the semis draw was announced.
South African batsman David Miller has stated that it was not pleasant to keep travelling between Pakistan and Dubai during the Champions Trophy 2025. Speaking bluntly after being eliminated from the tournament, Miller became the first cricketer to openly criticize the tournament’s scheduling.
With India not willing to go to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy, the remaining teams who were facing India had to go between the Pakistani cities and Dubai to face the opposition. Bangladesh, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Australia went to face India in the tournament.
The only team to fly to Dubai and not face India was South Africa. They were forced to make a flight out of Pakistan because they didn’t know their semi-final line-up until India took on New Zealand in the tournament’s last group-stage fixture.
It was a huge inconvenience for South Africa, who had to travel from Dubai immediately after playing England in the last group-stage match in Karachi. But since they were not seeded against India in Dubai, they travelled back to Pakistan once again, this time to Lahore to face their semi-final against New Zealand.
It’s only an hour and 40-minute flight, but the fact that we had to do that was not ideal,” David Miller was reported as saying by ESPNcricinfo after their semi-final match with New Zealand.
It’s early morning, it’s after the game, and we had to fly. Then we arrived in Dubai at 4:00 pm. And at 7:30 am, we had to return. It doesn’t make it pleasant. It’s not like we flew five hours, and we had sufficient time to recover and recuperate, but it was not a good situation nonetheless,” he said.
Miller was the first cricketer or coach of this tournament to clearly express his discontent with regard to the fixture list. A majority of cricketers and coaches had previously dismissed the inquiry, saying they were not fazed by one-and-a-half-hour additional journey time.
