Amid Dubai Flight Row Over India Match, South Africa Star’s Reply Shuts Down Critics

After securing the semi-finals of the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy 2025 on Saturday, South Africa find themselves travelling to Dubai, even though there’s a 50 percent chance that they’ll have to return to Pakistan for their semi-final clash. South Africa and Australia find themselves in a unique situation, where they both had to fly to Dubai, where the first semi-final will be held against India. But, one of the Proteas and the Kangaroos will return to Pakistan for the second semi-final against New Zealand. With the match-ups for the penultimate round still unclear, a never-seen-before twist was witnessed in the ongoing Champions Trophy.

South Africa star Marco Jansen, when asked about the situation in the press conference, however, said that he didn’t mind coming to Dubai as it gave him an opportunity to play some golf. While many feel such a move by the ICC was unnecessary, Jansen feels it was just a like domestic flight within Pakistan. 

“Yeah, I don’t mind it. I haven’t played golf in a long time, so I’m looking forward to that. Yeah, no we don’t – luckily it’s a short flight. It’s an hour-and-a-half flight, so it’s sort of like a domestic flight back home. It’s not too much of a hassle, or if you can call it like that. But yeah, like I said, I’m pretty excited to play some golf,” Jansen said on Saturday hours before their flight to Dubai.

“Yeah, we’ll see how they do against New Zealand because obviously that’s going to determine who we play in the semi-final, and that also will tell us where we’re playing. But if we play in Dubai and it’s against India, obviously they’ve had training and that kind of stuff, so they will be more used to the conditions. But we’ve also played in Dubai, so it’s not something new. We play spin really, really well. So, I don’t think it’s that much of an advantage, if you can say it like that. I just think it all comes down to who plays better on the day,” he added.

Jansen has been central to that, off the back of a strong performance that earned him Player of the Match honours against England, taking 3/39 off seven overs, along with three catches.

“I wouldn’t say the mindset changes (heading into the semi-finals); it’s just the occasion that’s probably a bit more hyped up, I guess. You try your processes, it’s a fancy term, but for me it’s just you have your steps or your guides that you go into every match and then basically in semi-finals you just try and do that extraordinarily well if that makes sense, whatever that is for you,” he told the media after South Africa’s win over England as quoted by the ICC.

The form suggests the Proteas have all the pieces in place to win the Champions Trophy from here on out.

While wet weather denied the cricketing world a chance to see how they looked against Australia, there’s no question they outclassed an England side stacked with talent.

With ANI Inputs

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