This is the BIG one. India versus Australia. Semi-finals. ICC World Cup 2015. It’s can’t get bigger than this. We expect the whole of India to watch this one, all 1.3 billion of them, cheering on their heroes, hopefully to World Cup glory.
Indeed, Indians may or may not dominate Australia in the cricket field tomorrow, but at the SCG in Sydney, they are all set to dominate the stands. It is believed that 70% of the tickets sold by the SCG have been bagged by Indian supporters. So Australia will have the unique experience of having their own home crowd cheer for the opposition!
What this means is, there is no home advantage or home support to be enjoyed by Australia. The SCG is likely to be more like the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. The Indian team will receive the most support – by far. Already, this has caused a great deal of resentment in the Australian media. But Indians don’t care. They just want their side to win, and beat their biggest rivals in cricket.
So, how will the match go? Australia certainly start as strong favorites, regardless of India’s wonderful performance in the World Cup so far, where they have been unbeaten in all matches. Australia have the edge because of the way they had blown away the Indians before in the Test series before the World Cup.
The Indians have been on this Australia tour for ages now. They left home way back in December last year. And they are still searching for their first win against Australia. Will it come tomorrow on the biggest stage of all – the semi-finals of the cricket World Cup?
No, says Australia captain Michael Clarke, who looks confident. Clarke says, “Expectation is there because we’re the No. 1 ranked one-day team in the world. The reason you have expectation is because you’ve performed. There’s been a lot of talk about pressure and expectation, but that’s what comes with … playing sport at the highest level.”
For India, opening batsman Rohit Sharma insists that there are no scars left from what happened earlier on their Australia tour: “We’ll be playing some different cricket now, so what happened we never want to carry into the World Cup. We always spoke about this.”
For India, we expect the same team which has done so well throughout the World Cup to play. Australia might make just one significant change – Pat Cummins for Josh Hazlewood, as they would want to rush the Indian batsmen with the extra pace of Cummins.
The Teams
Australia: 1 David Warner, 2 Aaron Finch, 3 Steven Smith, 4 Michael Clarke (capt), 5 Shane Watson, 6 Glenn Maxwell, 7 Brad Haddin (wk), 8 James Faulkner, 9 Mitchell Johnson, 10 Mitchell Starc, 11 Josh Hazlewood.
India: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Ajinkya Rahane, 5 Suresh Raina, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Mohit Sharma, 11 Mohammed Shami.
Match Conditions
Let’s discuss the weather forecast first. Sydney is all set to have a bright and sunny day tomorrow, so there will be no repeat of what happened in the first semi-final between New Zealand and South Africa, in which the weather had such a huge role to play in the result of the game. The pitch at SCG is very much to India’s liking – very little grass, and a perfect batting surface that is more sub-continental than Australian. Just as India want it. Their spinners should come into play tomorrow.
Watch India take on Australia tomorrow in the BIG semi-finals of the ICC World Cup 2015, live from Sydney, on Star Sports at 8:50 AM! The whole of India will be watching!
