Dubai, India defeated New Zealand by 44 runs in the final group match of ICC Champions Trophy 2025 and secured the top spot in Group A. After Shreyas Iyer's (79) brilliant innings, Varun Chakravarthy (5/42) made a great contribution in India's victory. Varun was also declared the Player of the Match for this brilliant bowling. With this victory of India, the picture of the semi-finals has also become clear. The first semi-final of the tournament will be played between India and Australia on Tuesday, while the second semi-final will be played between South Africa and New Zealand in Lahore on Wednesday.

Earlier, New Zealand won the toss today and decided to field first. It pushed India on the backfoot right from the beginning, when India's top 3 wickets were taken by adding just 30 runs. Shubman Gill (2), Rohit Sharma (15) and Virat Kohli (11) were dismissed cheaply. From here India was under pressure but Shreyas Iyer showed fighting spirit along with Akshar Patel (42) and pulled the team out of the pressure. Both made a crucial partnership of 98 runs for the fourth wicket.

Axar was caught by Rachin Ravindra here, when Kane Williamson took a brilliant catch of him at fine leg. After this KL Rahul came to support Iyer. Both of them had just made a partnership of 44 runs together but Iyer became the victim of O'Rourke on a personal score of 79. After some time KL Rahul also got out.

Later all-rounder Hardik Pandya played a crucial innings of 45 runs in 45 balls and took India's score to a fighting score of 249 runs.

The Kiwi team, which came out with a target of 250 runs, was under pressure from the beginning. Indian bowlers kept taking wickets continuously. At one end, experienced Kane Williamson (81) remained at the crease for a long time. But no batsman could support him. After Kane, captain Mitchell Santner scored the highest 28 runs for the team. The Kiwi team had no answer to the Indian spin bowlers and Varun Chakraborty proved to be the X factor in this, who took 5 wickets.