Did South Africa lose in the semi-finals because of India? David Miller blames the ICC

The South African team still has a long wait to win the ICC trophy. Their team also choked in the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy 2025, for which they are known. In this match, they had to face defeat by 50 runs against New Zealand. This match was very high-scoring, but the South African team could not chase the target of 363 runs. After this defeat, South African veteran player David Miller made a big statement and somewhere held the ICC responsible for their defeat.

Why did David Miller raise questions on ICC?

David Miller expressed his displeasure over the ICC's travel arrangements after being out of the tournament. Actually, this tournament is being played on a hybrid model, in which Team India is playing all its matches in Dubai and the matches of the rest of the teams were held in Pakistan. On the other hand, it was not clear till the last group stage match of the tournament which team India would play the semi-final against. In such a situation, both the semi-finalists of Group B, South Africa and Australia, had to come to Dubai from Pakistan. But after India's victory over New Zealand, South Africa had to return to Pakistan once again, as their semi-final was to be played in Lahore. Miller termed this additional travel as wrong.

David Miller, 'The flight was only an hour and 40 minutes, but we had to travel, which was not right. It was a morning flight, we had to travel after the match. Then we reached Dubai at 4 pm and had to return at 7:30 in the morning. It was not like we were coming back on a 5-hour flight, and we had enough time to rest and recover completely. But this situation was not ideal at all.'

Played a fighting innings in the semi-final match

Even though South Africa lost the semi-final match, a fighting innings was seen from David Miller's bat. David Miller played an unbeaten innings of 100 runs in 67 balls, which included 10 fours and 4 sixes. Let us tell you, this was also the fastest century in the history of the Champions Trophy. But he could not lead his team to victory.