Rohit Sharma's India coming into the clash with an unbeaten record and facing off a super-confident Australia -- the script sounds similar to the summit clash of the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup in Ahmedabad.
While the fans will be reminded of their recent clashes in the World Test Championship and the 2023 World Cup final both of which Australia won, the current side is quite depleted and will be taking the field without first-choice players like Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Marsh and Marcus Stoinis. Stand-in skipper Steve Smith hoped that they would be able to put up a good show once again.
Just going out and playing and hopefully we can put on a good show. But yeah, in terms of an advantage, yeah, maybe, I'm not sure. Yeah, India obviously played all their games here. So, they've seen what the surface is doing. The whole square block is pretty dry. Having spoken to the groundsman just now, a dry surface had a lot of traffic, so we've seen how the wickets have played. And India have obviously played really well in their games as well. So, it's going to be a good contest. We're looking forward to it.
He agreed that India have an advantage having played all their matches in Dubai while Australia travelled for this match from Pakistan after two of their three games produced no result.
In the field, it would be a clash between a spin-heavy India who have four tweakers, and the Australian batters. India has Varun Chakravarthy, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, and Axar Patel all of whom did well in their last league match against New Zealand with Chakravarthy bagging 5-42.
Travis Head was a huge factor when the two sides met in the ODI World Cup final in Ahmedabad and hoped that the batter could play a crucial role once again.
There's pressure every time you play in a big game but as we know Travis has stood up in many of those in the past and you know he looked in great touch the other night against Afghanistan and I'm sure he's going to be looking to come out here and play the same way he's played for a long time with good intent, good aggression and yeah hopefully he can get away in that power play and get us off to a nice start.
The Australia skipper said they have several options in the spin department.
We do have plenty of options there though. You know, we've got Tanveer Sangha in our squad. We've got Maxwell, Shorts, obviously out now, who's a bit of a loss. He's been bowling quite nicely and bowled really well last game. Travis Head can bowl, Marnus can bowl some overs, so Cooper Connolly if we go down that path as well. So, we've got a lot of part-time options that could certainly play a role on here and a couple of front-liners as well. So yeah, We'll see how we line up tomorrow.
India's top order batters too have done well in the Champions Trophy with Virat Kholi, Shubman Gill, and Shreyas Iyer in particular hitting up good runs.
They're dangerous players. I think the entire Indian batting line-up have the ability to go up and down in gears. They're a very good side with good cricketers. I think for us it's playing the conditions that are in front of us tomorrow and playing it better than the opposition simple as that.
While the Aussies would be weary of the Indian spinners, skipper Rohit Sharma said playing four spinners would be tempting, but they will have to work for the right combination.
We really need to think, even if we want to play four spinners, how we can squeeze them. If we don't, then we don't. Whatever works for us in terms of the bowling options, we will try and do that. The reason I say that is because we are very much aware of the conditions, and know exactly what works and what doesn't work. So, we'll just give it a day. We'll think about it, what is the right combination to go with. But it is tempting,” said Rohit in the pre-match press conference.
Rohit, who is currently in the centre of a controversy over fat-shaming by a political leader, is due a big score and will be hoping to rule the semifinal.
Squads: India: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, K.L. Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakravarthy, Arshdeep Singh
Australia: Steve Smith (c), Sean Abbott, Alex Carey, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Spencer Johnson, Aaron Hardie, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Tanveer Sangha, Adam Zampa, Cooper Connolly.
