When India locks horns with Australia on Sunday, many people will lose their minds due to a nail-biting finish. Such is the excitement these two teams provide when they play against each other.
The record might tell you that Australia dominated India in World Cup games (winning 8 games out of 11), but most of the matches produced absolute rippers. There are only two world cup matches that were won by a margin of 1 run and both the times these two teams were involved.
India, one the most favourite to win the title, have started their campaign on a winning note. The team played as a unit, and the bowlers bowled according to plan and supported well by the fielders, followed by an excellent batting display by the batsmen.
But Australia is no South Africa, and they know how to make a comeback from a losing position. So Indian bowlers need to be on their toes throughout the match as they have seen what Australian lower order did against the West Indies.
Australia’s strength is in their never give up attitude. Despite this, their bowling could land them in trouble as only Starc seems to be in good form. So if the Indian batsmen see him off, there won’t be much issue in scoring runs against the rest of the bowlers.
Australia also has to watch out for Jasprit Bumhah, who is in great form. The Indian spin duo (Kuldeep & Chahal) had been tackled well by the Aussies in the bilateral series in India. But they picked six wickets against South Africa, so you can’t just write them off. Smith and Warner need to bat throughout the innings to get a good score for Australia.
Players to watch out
Bumrah is the trump card for India. The number one bowler got an orthodox bowling action which keeps the batsmen guessing what’s coming next. Most of his balls pitch on the middle stump and drift away from the batsman, which makes it hard to play.
Starc would love to continue his current form. He has an uncanny knack of dismissing the most dangerous batsman of the opposing team at the early stage of the innings. If he does well, India won’t be able to score as per their likings.
India v Australia in ODIs:
Overall: Matches 136, India Won 49, Australia Won 79, No Result 10
World Cup: Matches 3, India Won 3, Australia Won 8
Recent Form (most recent first): India W L L L W, Australia W W W W W
ICC Rankings: India (2), Australia (5)
Upcoming Records:
Virat Kohli needs 139 more runs to reach the 11,000 runs milestone, and he will be the 3rd Indian after Tendulkar and Ganguly to reach the milestone.
Kohli needs just one more half century to reach the record of 50 half century in ODIs.
Aaron Finch has 98 ODI sixes on his name, and he needs two more to reach 100 sixes in ODIs.
Hardik Pandya needs six wickets to reach 50 wickets milestone in ODIs while Coulter-Nile needs 2.
Squads:
India: Virat Kohli (capt), Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shikhar Dhawan, MS Dhoni (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Vijay Shankar, Rohit Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav.
Australia: Aaron Finch (capt), Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey (wk), Nathan Coulter-Nile, Pat Cummins, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, David Warner, Adam Zampa.
