India qualified for the final of the 2023 World Cup, maintaining their winning streak, for the first time since their historic run in 2011. In the thrilling final on Sunday in Ahmedabad, India will now face Australia, who defeated South Africa in the semifinal on Thursday in Kolkata. An Australian player said the home team had “no real weaknesses” prior to the summit match, however he did acknowledge that during their league-stage match in Chennai at the beginning of the tournament, the Australians did see a few gaps in the Indian line-up.
India’s World Cup campaign began in Chennai on October 8 against Australia. At the MA Chidambaram Stadium, the five-time champions chose to bat first and recovered from an early loss of Mitchell Marsh for a duck thanks to a solid 74-run partnership between David Warner and Steve Smith. But Australia was bowled out for just 199 in 49.3 overs by the spin three of Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, and R Ashwin, who tore through the rest of the lineup.
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But pacer Josh Hazlewood gave India a frightening start to the chase, taking three quick wickets in his first two overs, removing Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, and Shreyas Iyer for ducks. Hazlewood made a hint about wanting to do the same to put India under strain early in the final before it took place on Sunday.
“We’ve played them a lot of times, but we only had one in the series, which we lost 2-1. We share an intimate familiarity with them.It will be exciting to play them on Sunday because they are a top team that has been dominating the competition and have no true flaws. When we played them in Chennai chasing a modest target, I suppose we saw a few cracks; we were fortunate to get a couple early,” he remarked. After a brilliant 164-run partnership between Virat Kohli and KL Rahul, India recovered to finish the chase with 8.4 overs remaining.
India and Australia will play in their 14th World Cup match on Sunday. In their 13 prior meetings, India has only prevailed five times. Only one of those occurred in a 2011 knockout match. India has lost both of their prior knockout matches against Australia, including the Johannesburg final in 2003.
