India v Australia
And I thought Napoleon Dynamite was a comedy, not a documentary.
Australia have won the toss and will bat first. MS Dhoni says he would also have batted, and that's a decent toss to win on a pitch that should lose a bit of life as the day progresses. There's some surprising team news on both sides. India have omitted Yusuf Pathan, with Suresh Raina preferred at No7 and the fit again Virender Sehwag coming back into the side. Australia have also strengthened their batting, with David Hussey replacing Steve Smith. That's a reflection of the poor performance of the middle order on both sides thus far.
India Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Kohli, Yuvraj, Dhoni (c/wk), Raina, Harbhajan, Ashwin, Zaheer, Patel.
Australia Watson, Haddin (wk), Ponting (c), Clarke, M Hussey, White, D Hussey, Johnson, Lee, Krejza, Tait.
The last time India went out of their World Cup, in 1996, the fans rioted. Just saying. In other news, here's some rare footage of Graham Gooch sweeping India to death in the semi-finals in 1987 – the other occasion on which India were eliminated as hosts.
Whoever wins tonight will play Pakistan on Wednesday. If India get through, that will make today's match seem like a jaunty little warm-up fixture.
Preamble This is a quarter-final only in name. In nature, India v Australia is something much grander, especially when it is the hosts against the holders. It's almost too big for a final, never mind a last-eight game, and that adds a significant frisson to today's contest. There is a unique tension when two superpowers meet ahead of schedule. If the quarter-finals is par for the heavyweights in a football World Cup, then in rugby and cricket it's the semi-finals. If you go out before that you are generally doomed to bathe in ignominy for the foreseeable future.
Everyone and everything has an unspoken minimum requirement when it comes to performance. For some, it's a triumph to simply get through the day without making a total fool of themselves, or without brushing their teeth with the Original Source Chocolate and Mint Shower Melt and smearing Colgate under their armpits; for some of us you, defiant mediocrity really is a victory. For others, and certainly for these two teams, the bar is a little higher. A quarter-final exit alone is enough to invite widespread criticism - but this time that will be exacerbated by both teams' modest performances during the group stage. Whoever departs today will have beaten just one of the top eight sides, New Zealand in Australia's case and West Indies in India's. That'[s not good enough.
Both sides have problems, and have been dangerously dependent on their openers and one high-class fast bowler (Brett Lee for Australia, Zaheer Khan for India). Today's match might not be decided by who reaches the greater peaks, but who best avoids the troughs. Chuck in the compelling subplots, particularly Ricky Ponting fighting for his life and Sachin Tendulkar on 99 international centuries, and it's clear that this game is - as Mark Nicholas once said - massive, massive.
It's almost too much to comprehend that one of these sides will be out of the tournament by this evening. But they will and, whoever it is, they probably shouldn't read the papers tomorrow.
* Chocolate shower gel? That's a still-drunk-the-morning-after accident waiting to happen. What next. Deodorant-flavour beer? Ready salted crisps with a hint of Ralgex?
source : http://www.guardian.co.uk/
0 Response to "India v Australia"
Post a Comment