'It's early morning, it's after a game, and we had to fly. Then we got to Dubai at 4pm.'
South Africa's David Miller has questioned the scheduling of the second Champions Trophy semi-final that his side lost to New Zealand in Lahore on Wednesday.
South Africa had to catch an early morning flight to Dubai the night after playing their final group game in Karachi. With the tournament being played in a hybrid model, both Australia and South Africa were camped in Dubai waiting for the result of the group game between India and New Zealand.
As Group B toppers, South Africa had to take the flight back to Pakistan to play their semi-final as the last-four clash involving India was to be staged in Dubai.
After scoring a hundred in a losing cause, Miller termed the scheduling not ideal.
"It's only an hour-and-40-minute flight, but the fact that we had to do that . It's early morning, it's after a game, and we had to fly. Then we got to Dubai at 4pm.
"And at 7.30 in the morning we had to come back. It doesn't make it nice. It's not like we flew five hours, and we had enough time to recover and recuperate. But it was not an ideal situation still," Miller was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.
Miller's comments come after his teammate Rassie van der Dussen had referred to India's advantage of playing all their games at one venue.
Though he wants New Zealand to win the final against India, Miller expects it to be a tight affair.
"They're both incredibly good teams. India have shown the world how really good they are. They've been playing some good cricket for a number of years now and they've got some seriously good players. It's going to be a great game," said Miller.
South Africa had lost last year's T20 World Cup final to India and on Wednesday they once again failed in a knockout game.
"There were really good contributions, a couple of fifties up front. We had a really good foundation. Unfortunately, in the middle, we lost a couple of wickets too many," he said of the steep run chase against New Zealand.
"At the end of the day, it's a team effort. Everyone's trying out there to do their best. It would have been nice to have a rematch against India. But life is not fair sometimes. Anyone has to work really hard to achieve trophies."
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