Tuesday’s epic first World Cup semi-final, where New Zealand trumped South Africa in the most frenzied of circumstances, generated a specific variety of sympathy for the vanquished.
For all their stretches of dominance in formats of the game long and short, the Proteas’ failure to again make cricket’s biggest stage survives as an increasingly desperate anomaly. It would have conjured much the same emotion had the co-hosts faltered after registering a clean sheet to that sudden death stage.
Due to the shortcomings of teams wearing their national shirt that largely came before them, both carried into the final foura shared and disproportionately magnified fear of failure.
No such apprehension will pervade the heavy weights of world cricket when Australia hosts India in Sydney on Thursday for the remaining spot in Sunday’s final. This isn’t to suggest the fixture means any less to the participants, but neither exists in a cricket culture punctuated with falling short. They are teams that know how to duke it out, from countries that know how to win.
Of course, it’s no rarity forthe biggest cats of the cricket jungle to face off. Indeed, these are teams that know each other intimately, which creates a grudging respect –but it also means there isn’t an ounce of lost love.
Perversely, the frequency of their competition means recent form against each other doesn’t mean an awful lot. There isn’t a strength or weakness these two intense rivals don’t know every inch of.
For India’s part, they’re now into the sixth month of this marathon Australian tour. After the first two stanzas yielded the visitors not a single competitive victory, their undefeated World Cup streak hasn’t so much confounded expectations as much as highlight where their priorities for this summer laid, culminating in these final precious encounters.
Where until Tuesday New Zealand hadn’t won any of their six World Cup semi finals, Australia have never any ofthe half dozen they have played. India’s record is more balanced at this stage of the tournament (3-2), but as defending champions they know a thing or two about finding a way to win when a billion or more sets of eyes are trained on their every move.
While form and history cannot be discounted entirely in how they interact with psychological preparation, a far more immediate driver of Thursday’s contest will be how the pitch comes up after a bout of inclement weather. A track with extra life will be welcomed by both pace attacks, but it is Australia that stands to benefit more due to their preference of operating without a specialist tweaker in favour of a battering ram of pace.
India’s own trio of quicks have been a surprise packet of the tournament, integral to being the only team to successfully take ten wickets in every outing. Mohammad Shami, UmeshYadav and Mohit Sharma may not carry with them the reputation of Mitchells Starc and Johnson, but they’ve quietly gone about collecting 42 of those 70 wickets between them, with Shami leading the way as the equal third most prolific wicket taker in the Cup.
They will have watched carefully as Pakistani speedster Wahab Riaz went within a dropped catch of running through the Australian middle order last Friday in Adelaide. Whether they have the sheer pace for a replica performance is questionable, but in a World Cup where containment has counted for little, an assertive assault aimed at Australian helmets has merit.
Raw innings totals suggest Australia’s batting line up should be free of the microscope, but that’s a fraction deceptive. Simply put, had that aforementioned catch been held, the Australians would have been in genuine strife at 4/80.
Opener Aaron Finch’s list of failures since the opening day of the tournament is cause for concern, and the Indians will fancy getting an early look at captain Michael Clarke, who has been far from imposing. The lower-middle order pair of James Faulkner and Brad Haddin is fine auxiliary support down the list, but hasn’t been required for much heavy lifting to date.
To look at it another way, the earlier India can take on Glenn Maxwell, the harder it is for that force-of-nature to play his unorthodox but devastating brand of cricket. By contrast, if he’s able to unleash with wickets in hand after a base has been established, well… good luck.
Despite the celebrated and unprecedented increase in scoring rates during this tournament, India – the home of limited-overs score hyperinflation – have gone about their run scoring in a more modest manner, never needing more than 307.
Granted, Bangladesh wasanungenerous DRS interpretation and a poor no-ball decision away from being well ahead of the curve in the quarterfinal, but a timely ton from Rohit Sharma following on from three-figure efforts by Suresh Raina and ShikharDhawan in preceding pair of games, reflects the stability of a side sharing the load.
That’s not to mention Virat Kholi, who hasn’t passed 50 since his Pakistan century on 15 February, but has a knack of stepping up when needed most. Much like his skipper, the ever cool MS Dhoni.
Starc’s first ODI delivery of 2015 was a wicket, on the very same Sydney Cricket Ground where this game will be fought. He took another two balls later. Those 69 days have yielded 30 wickets in total – one for every three overs he’s bowled. No contest-within-a-contest will influence this result as much as Starc against the Indian top order.
In a format of the game routinely accused of lacking relevance, there can be no greater incentive than the chance to enter a World Cup final. If India progresses, they’ll earn the opportunity to defend their trophy;for Australia it will be the chance to make it four World Cup triumphs out of five. For the super powers of world cricket, perhapsit was always destined to be so.
Adam Collins is an Australian cricket writer. Check out his latest Tweets.
Adam Collins is an Australian cricket writer. Check out his latest Tweets (https://twitter.com/collinsadam). - See more at: http://www.dhakatribune.com/cricket/2015/mar/25/world-crickets-heavyweights-prepare-duke-it-out#sthash.Ps7S6wXb.dpuf