India vs Australia Live Score, World Cup Final 2023: Australia captain Pat Cummins won the toss and chose to bowl first and India’s Rohit Sharma said that they would have batted first anyway. Both sides are unchanged from the semi-final. While Rohit has got off to a rocket of a …Read More start as usual, Shubman Gill, who has a fantastic record across formats in Ahmedabad, has fallen early to Mitchell Starc. Virat Kohli came in all guns blazing but Rohit soon fell to Glenn Maxwell thanks to a fantastic catch from Travis Head three runs short of his half century. Cummins then got the in-form Shreyas Iyer in the next over and KL Rahul and Kohli are now trying to steady the Indian ship. The boundaries dried up almost entirely after the 10th over and Kohli fell after fell on 54 off 63. Rahul has tried to hold the innings together but India were dealt another blow when Ravindra Jadeja, promoted ahead of Suryakumar Yadav, fell in the 36th over. Rahul has ground out a half-century while SKY is now giving him company in what is the last stand of recognised batters for India.
An entire nation holds its collective breath together as the invincible force India meets the immovable object Australia. The prize on the line is a World Cup trophy. The two teams that did battle 20 years ago in the summit clash at Johannesburg, and incidentally, the two semi-finalists who lost at the 2019 World Cup. When former India coach Ravi Shastri mentioned ahead of India’s World Cup 2023 opener against Australia – ‘there’s a long way to go but these two could be the potential finalists’, his prediction couldn’t seem any farther from the truth. Australia had lost two on the bounce, looked short of answers and all over the place. But when it’s the five-time champions you’re talking about, rule them out at your own peril. Eight consecutive wins followed and here we are – the grand-finale of a Cricket World Cup, and truth be told, you can’t think of two more deserving teams than India and Australia to fight for the biggest honour in cricket.
For a country where rugby is the No. 1 sport by quite some distance, the pressure surrounding Australia is nowhere close to the one that the Indian fans are currently facing. You could cut the tension with a knife. People are more nervous than they are the night before a University exam. And who can blame them? It’s been a 10-year-long wait for an ICC silverware, 12 for a World Cup. From 2011, only two players remain in the India squad – Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin. Add to that the emotions surrounding cricket fans in their mid-30s, who were in their teenage years and cried themselves to sleep the night of March 23, 2003.
However, if all the emotions are to be kept aside, and attention paid to cricket, so much has already transpired. So there were discussion surrounding the pitch – whether the final will be played on a used surface – and a prediction from Mitchell Marsh which despite being said in jest, went viral. There’s this news of umpire Richard Kettleborough officiating the final, which is already giving fans sleepless nights and Pat Cummins expressing what a delight it will be to silence 1.3 lakh Indians by winning the World Cup. Having said that, deep down Cummins is aware that all this is easier said than done. They’ve been beaten by India four times in ODIs this year, once previously in the tournament itself. A team that has shown no weakness thus far. A team that has no loopholes despite losing their vice-captain to injury.
As per reports, the Ahmedabad surface will be the same on which the India vs Pakistan game was played, and is expected to play slightly sluggish. Ideally, winning the toss and batting first would be the key to success but with these two teams you never know. India have made chasing looks ridiculously easy, while the Aussies did the unimaginable when Glenn Maxwell pulled off the heist of at least the last two decades. Is there a favourite on paper? India may just be ahead a tad, but when the other team is Australia, please tear that piece of paper and throw it in the bin.
Regardless of what captain Rohit Sharma says, stuff like all 15 players have a chance of playing or we haven’t decided on the XI yet and etc., the bottom line is that India will go unchanged 99.9 percent. Even Australia know it. Why tamper with a combination that has won you the last six matches in a row, let alone in the final? Sure, with this game being against Australia, whose batters aren’t the best players of spinners, Ravichandran Ashwin is a mouth-watering temptation, but so good have Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav been, that getting a third spinner at the expense of a batter could become a decision India may live to regret.
As the road to the World Cup reaches its final destination, life comes full circle for both Rohit Sharma and Pat Cummins. Cummins has a chance to prove his captaincy doubters wrong that he can join Allan Border, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke in the same league of legends. And as for Rohit, what better way to channel the frustration and anger of missing out on the 2011 World Cup squad into a title-winning show, one that promises to be remembered for the ages. So brace up folks. Prepare yourself for 8 hours of pulsating action. It’s India vs Australia. World Cup final.
It doesn’t get bigger than this.
Here are a few pointers surrounding the India vs Australia World Cup 2023 final:
– Australia won the toss and chose to bowl first
– Rohit got off to a quick start as usual but Shubman Gill fell early
– Virat Kohli then came out all guns blazing but Australia struck back again with the wickets of Rohit and the in-form Shreyas Iyer
– Kohli and KL Rahul then struggled to get away and while the former scored another 50, he eventually fell to Pat Cummins
– Rahul ground out a half-century but then saw Ravindra Jadeja fall at the other end
– Suryakumar Yadav and Rahul are looking to salvage the innings
India XI: Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj
Australia XI: Travis Head, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Josh Inglis(w), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins(c), Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood
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