India vs Australia: Who will sustain the winning streak?

The aussies will be clashing against India on the 9th of June. This will be a blockbuster with both teams having not lost any match yet. India had their recent match against South Africa which they won easily while chasing. Australia had their recent matches against Afghanistan and West Indies. They won against Afghanistan by chasing and West Indies by setting a target.

This is a blog about the preview of India vs Australia match on the 9th of June

THE AUSSIE FORM

The Australian team had their first match against Afghanistan in which they won while chasing. The Afghans were put into bat first. Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins provided Australia a great start by getting the wickets of both the openers in the first two overs. The Afghan middle order collasped except the fact that Rahmat Shah scored 43 runs of 60 balls and Gulbadin Naib added 31 runs of 33 balls.

The lower order played a good hand with Najibullah Zadran scoring 51 runs of 49 balls and Rashind Khan scoring a cameo of 27 runs from just 11 balls which consisted of 3 sixes and 2 fours.

The Australian bowling attack had done a really good job by ristricting Afghanistan at 210 runs. Pat cummins and Adam Zampa thrashed the top order and the tail-enders while Marcus Stoinis took 2 important wickets of two set batsmen. The Afghan captain Gulbadin Naib and the highest scorer from the Afghanistan team Najibullah Zadran.

The aussie openers made most of the score by adding a partnership of 96 runs. Aaron Finch scored 66 runs of 49 balls while David Wrner finished the innings by scoring 89 runs of 114 balls. The rest was done by the unneded extras and 20 runs scored by Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja respectively. The Australians had a good start to the tournament.

The next match was against the fiery West Indies. Australia batted first with Aaron Finch and David Warner not providing a good start. The top order added just below than 25 runs with only Steve Smith getting settled and scoring decent 73 runs of 103 balls. The middle order did not make much out of the stand given by Steve Smith but the lower order did an excellent job. Alex Carey added 45 runs of 55 balls and the part time batsman Nathan Coulter-Nile played a match saving knock of 92 runs of just 60 balls.

The West Indies bowling attack kept taking wickets throughout the match with Carlos Braithwaite taking 3 wickets and Andre Russell, Oshane Thomas, Sheldon Cotrell taking 2 wickets.

The West Indies had to outperform to chase the target of 289 runs. They were not provided a good start just when Mitchell Starc took the wicket of Chris Gayle. The middle order of the West Indies team was confident and played a good hand with Shai Hope contributing 68 runs from 105 runs, Nicolas Pooran scoring 40 runs of 36 balls, and Jason Holder scoring 51 runs of 57 balls.

The West Indies team fell short by 15 runs when neither Andre Russell nor Carlos Braithwaite played a match winning innings. The Australian bowling attack had an decent overall performance but Mitchell Starc finished with the surprising figures of 10-1-46-5, bowling 10 overs, 1 maiden, conceding 46 runs and taking 5 wickets. Pat Cummins took 2 wickets which were the crucial ones of Evin Lewis and Shai Hope.

India’s form has recently been consistent with a good bowling attack and a supportive batting middle order. In the match against South Africa India was put on to bowl with Jasprit Bumrah getting both the destructive openers in the powerplay which put all the pressure on the proteas middle-order. The wrist-spin and chinaman pair of Chahal and Kuldeep broke through the middle-order by Chahal scalping 4 wickets. Bhuvneshwar Kumar got the tail-enders. The proteas middle-order was destroyed but the lower-order played an extremely good hand as Andile Phelukwayo played a slow innings of 34 runs of 61 balls, Chris Morris scored 42 runs of 34 balls while Kagiso Rabada in the end got settled and scored 31 runs of 35 balls.

The Indian team was given the task to chase 228 runs which was chasen by ease as Rohit Sharma scored a century and made more than half of the runs. The middle-order consisting of KL Rahul and MS Dhoni contributed slow 60 runs of 86 balls which were enough to make all the runs until Hardik Pandya hit 3 fours and India won.

THE GAME PLAN

The plan for India to win must be to get some quick wickets specially of Steve Smith and restrict Australia under 260 runs. Shikhar Dhwan will be required to make a good contribution in this match which would add a bit more extra runs. The middle-order must get settled and then start accelerating after 35 overs.

I would like all of you to take a look at my recent blog of the review of India vs South Africa which was written on your demand. My new blog will be coming a day before every match the Indian team plays.