Big picture: Australia have denied India before
“(T)here’s nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent.”
Pat Cummins won’t be in Dubai on Tuesday, but the words he spoke on November 18, 2023, will be. The players may not themselves be thinking about them, but viewers around the world quite likely will – if not about the words themselves, certainly about the broader theme they represent.
Since winning their quarter-final game at the 2011 World Cup, India have met Australia
four times in ICC ODI tournaments, winning twice and losing twice. The two wins came in round-robin matches at the 2019 and 2023 World Cups, and the defeats in the 2015 semi-finals and the 2023 final.
Many months have passed since November 19, 2023, and Tuesday’s Champions Trophy semi-final will pit a different India against a vastly different Australia, but the truth of that momentous day will hold just as good. In that World Cup, India assembled a team for the ages and plowed through opposition after opposition like a battering ram; then they ran into an Australia side that was very, very good, though perhaps not as good as India, but certainly good enough to beat them in a one-off contest. If ever there was a cricketing parallel to
Maracana 1950this was it.
The gap between the two teams in this tournament is wider, with Australia missing their entire first-choice pace attack, and the conditions in Dubai only widen this gap. These gaps, however, matter less in one-off contests than over a series or a league, and there is enough quality in Australia’s line-up to make light of them, particularly in the game-changing potential of Travis Head at the top of the order (do India ever need reminding of what he can do?), the quality running through their middle order, and the legspin of Adam Zampa.
For India, meanwhile, questions that simmered unnoticed during the group stage now gain greater urgency. Virat Kohli has just played his 300th ODI; how many more will there be? And what of Rohit Sharma? And Ravindra Jadeja? These three retired from the shortest format after India’s T20 World Cup victory last year; how much longer will they go on in ODIs? Do they still have 2027 in their sights, or could this Champions Trophy be it?
Whenever they go, they would desperately want another ODI trophy to take with them. All three won the 2013 Champions Trophy, and Kohli has a World Cup medal from 2011, but the current generation that they’ve done so much to nurture may well be India’s best-ever in ODIs. As of now, they don’t have the silverware to show for it.
Australia have denied them before. Australia stand in their way once again.
Form guide
India: WWWWW (last five completed ODIs, most recent first)
Australia: WLLLL
In the spotlight: Rohit Sharma and Glenn Maxwell
Just under a month ago, at a time when questions about his international future swirled furiously around him, Rohit Sharma scored a breathtaking hundred against England that showed he remains among the world’s most dangerous ODI openers. He got off to starts in all three of India’s group games, but his highest score of this Champions Trophy, at this point, is 41. India would be thrilled if he could better that in this semi-final.
Of all batters to have scored at least 200 ODI runs against spin since the start of 2022, Glenn Maxwell (141.49) has the best strike rate. Of the top 12 batters in that list, however, Maxwell (37.81) is the only one to average under 40 against spin. He can take spinners apart like no one else, but he also gives them a chance. The yin and yang of Maxwell’s game, then, may go on to have an outsize influence on a contest against an India side that will certainly have three top-class spinners and potentially even four. Maxwell’s offspin could be just as crucial to Australia’s hopes; his dismissal of Rohit was one of the foremost match-turning moments of the 2023 World Cup final.
Team news
Four spinners or three? And if three, which three? These are the big questions India will wrestle with following Varun Chakravarthy’s five-wicket haul against New Zealand on Sunday. The pitch they play on will likely determine the answers – the semi-final strip is the same one that was used for the India-Pakistan game on February 23.
India (Probable): 1 Rohit Sharma (Capt), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Axar Patel, 6 Kl Rahul (WK), 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Kuldeep Yad, 10 Mahammed Shamai, 11 Varun Chakravarthy
Australia have brought Cooper Connolly into their squad in place of the injured Matt Short, and it seems likely that the left-arm spin-bowling allrounder will slot in immediately, given the likely conditions in Dubai, and the fact that Australia have lost not just an opener in Short but also an offspinner who went 7-0-21-0 in their last match. If Connolly plays, however, Australia will have to decide who opens alongside Head. Josh Inglis seems the likely option; he opened throughout Australia’s three-match home ODI series against West Indies last year, scoring 65, 9 and 35*. There is also the chance that Australia could pick a second frontline spinner in Tanveer Sangha, if the look of the pitch persuades them to do so.
Australia (probable): 1 Travis Head, 2 Josh Inglis (wk), 3 Steven Smith (capt), 4 Marnus Labuschagne, 5 Cooper Connolly, 6 Alex Carey, 7 Glenn Maxwell, 8 Ben Dwarshuis, 9 Nathan Ellis, 10 Spencer Johnson, 11 Adam Zampa
Pitch and conditions
The pitch for this semi-final is the same one on which India played Pakistan on February 23. It played fairly similarly to the one on which India have played their other two games, against Bangladesh and New Zealand, with one unifying theme. Across the three matches, spinners have averaged
42.22 in the first innings while going at 4.81 runs per over. In the second, they have
averaged 24.76 and gone at 4.18.
The pitches in Dubai have shown a clear tendency to slow down over 100 overs, and this, along with dew not being much of an issue at this time of year, may persuade the captain winning the toss to bat first.
A clear, sunny day is expected in Dubai with a maximum temperature of 29 degrees Celsius.
Stats and trivia
- Since the start of 2010, India have positive win-loss records against all their ODI opponents other than Australia, against whom they are dead even: 23 wins and 23 defeats.
India have won two and lost one of their four Champions Trophy meetings with Australia. They haven’t met each other in the tournament since a rain-affected no-result at Centurion in 2009.
Beginning with that Centurion game, Australia have had seven result matches in the Champions Trophy, and six that were either washed out without a result or abandoned without a toss.
India have lost their last 13 tosses in a row, with Rohit captaining them in ten of those games, and KL Rahul in three.
Maxwell needs 17 runs to get to the 4000 mark in ODIs, while Rahul is 33 away from 3000.
Between them, Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis and Spencer Johnson – Australia’s three main seamers in this tournament – have played just two ODIs against India.
Quotes
“The clear message was given to him when we started the ODI series against England, that no matter what the situation is, you will bat at (No.) 5. And the kind of improvement he’s shown with his bat over the last year or so is superb to watch (…) He likes to take the game on, likes to play his shots. And sometimes you are in trouble, you want to always take that positive route. And with Axar, we definitely can do that. He showed it in the T20 World Cup final, which was a very, very crucial knock. Again, in that game as well, we were three down and for him to come out and bat like that was superb, and got us to a decent total in the end. And that is what we expect. Whenever he’s gotten an opportunity, he’s shown that he can do just a bit more than what we expect him to do.”
India captain Rohit Sharma on India’s use of Axar Patel at No. 5
