Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has shared his favorites for the high-voltage Champions Trophy 2025 semi-final clash between India and Australia on March 4, Tuesday as well. Ponting also believes Team India will start as the favorites, given they have been playing all their
matches at the same venue as well.

Speaking on the latest episode of the ICC Review, Ponting said, “I think India are going to start favourites in this game. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that with what they’ve done in the tournament so far. The fact that they’re playing in the venue that they’ve played their games in. They haven’t had to move and travel. They’ve been training on those wickets all the time. Australia have rushed in to Dubai to get ready for the game.”

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Ricky Ponting also stated that India should not be focused on what happened during the 2023 World Cup final. With a different coach
and a support staff, he feels the result of the World Cup should barely matter now as well.

Ponting added, “Big games and big moments like that, you would hope that would be left behind in the dressing room there and that night, and you got to move on pretty quickly. They’ve got a lot of experienced players in this Indian side, a different coach as well, which might be something that means they haven’t talked about it or haven’t focused on it, or do they use it as motivation?”

“Do they talk about it a lot and try and motivate themselves and get up to redeem themselves from that World Cup final? So there’s two ways to look at it but if they’re playing well, I don’t think they need to be focused on anything other than just making sure they find a way to get better every game,” Ricky Ponting concluded.