ODI WC Final - India Are Favourites
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2023-11-19 02:57:05
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
Cricket-crazy India is primed for a fascinating show this afternoon as arguably the best ODI team in history, unbeaten in this tournament, takes on the resurgent Australians who have made it to the finals by winning their last eight matches after losing the first two in the tournament. They lost to India in the earlier match but that seldom counts in a big tournament like this. The Australians are always a force to reckon with in the finals of big tournaments (they have five World Cup trophies to prove that).
But this time around, the Australian team is not firing as a unit. They have been dependent on individual performances to get them through. Glenn Maxwell played the innings of a lifetime to rescue them from a precarious situation against Afghanistan and single-handedly won a match that was lost by all calculations. It was just the inexperience of the Afghans and Maxwell's amazing resilience and big-hitting prowess that got Australia through. Also, in the semifinal against South Africa, the Australians scraped through not because they were better but because the South Africans could not up their game and hold on to chances.
The Indians, on the other hand, have been playing like champions since the beginning of the tournament. They have a solid game plan, their batters are in awesome form and the bowlers have destroyed the best of batting lineups of all teams, including Australia. Rohit Sharma at the top has set the ball rolling for India by going after the bowlers in the power play. India has notched up more than 60 runs in the first 10 overs consistently in the tournament. Then, Virat Kolhi has played the anchor role to perfection and allowed the likes of Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer and K L Rahul to go for their shots. Jasprit Bumrah, Md Siraj, Md Shami, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav have shown the world how to bowl with penetration in ODIs and in Indian conditions. The Indian team is playing like a happy unit and that is the key to their success so far.
It promises to be a great match. The pitch is expected to be a slow turner with even bounce. The team winning the toss is likely to bat first. The Indian think tank might replace Md Siraj with R Ashwin in following the horses-for-courses policy. Three spinners on a slow turner will test the Australians and the Indians would be hoping that they can put them under the same kind of pressure that Maharaj and Shamsi did in the semifinal against South Africa. If the Indian plans work, the whole of India will celebrate Diwali again this evening.
