Thursday, May 6, 2010

India vs Australia Preview and Live Score: Super 8 of T20 World Cup 2010

India and Australia are going to face each other on 7 May in their first match of Super Eight round in the ongoing T20 world cup 2010. The match will take place at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown in Barbados. Both India and Australia reached the Super Eight round as the group champion as they won both of their matches in the group stage.

Match: India vs Australia, Group F, Super Eight Round, ICC World Twenty20 2010

Date: 7 May 2010

Venue: Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados

Kick off: GMT 13:30; Local 09:30; India 19:00;

Live TV: Star Cricket, Super Sports 2, DD National

Both sides will be looking to continue the momentum going and a winning start in the super eight is what they will be looking for. So far, India and Australia met each other in T20 world cup only once and that was the semi final of the inaugural tournament in South Africa which won and went on to win the title. So, Australia can find some sense of revenge in tomorrow’s game, but more than that they would like to win the game to clinch the point and go a step closer to semi final progress.

India, on the other hand, did not have a very good tournament last year in England, after their triumph in 2007 tournament. So, they will be craving a victory against Australia and anything less than a semi final progress will be considered as a big failure for Dhoni’s team. The good thing is that a number of Indian players are in good form and it is pretty much certain that the Aussies will find it very difficult to break India.

Batting is considered as India’s biggest strength and their batting line up boasts of the big hitters like Gambhir, Dhoni, Raina, Yuvraj Singh and Yusuf Pathan. In the absence of hard hitter Virender Sehwag, Murali Vijay has done well to fit the bill. However, it is true that most of the Indian batsmen did not get runs in the group stage, except Raina and Vijay. However, there is no way Australia can take Indian batsmen lightly, because they saw an explosive Yuvraj in their 2007 defeat in T20 world cup. Gautam Gambhir missed the South Africa match with a minor injury and it seems that he will be back for the Australia match as he has already recovered from the injury.

What impressed me more about Indian team is their bowling performance. More specifically, their pacers have done very well so far and it seems that they have been able to get the best out of the Caribbean pitches and if they can continue doing that, it would only help India to replicate their 2007 success. However, the bad news for the Indian team is that in-form pacer Praveen Kumar has returned home with an abdominal injury that he picked during a practice session.

NDTV reported:

Praveen had sustained the injury during a practice session at the 3Ws Oval and the Indian team management sent him for an MRI which revealed a a tear in abdomen muscle.

His injury happened just a day before India play their first Super Eight match with Australia.

Young pacer Umesh Yadav has been called up as Praveen’s replacement for the tournament. It has been the first national team call-up for the pacer who hails from Vidarbha. Well, it is a big blow to miss a swing bowler like Praveen Kumar, but India still has a good pace attack in the presence of Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and in-form Vinay Kumar, who was also called up to the Indian team for the first time on the back of his excellent IPL performance. Led by Harbhajan Singh, India’s spin attack includes some quality spinners like Jadeja, Chawla, and Yusuf Pathan.

Australia started their T20 world cup campaign on the back of a frustrating defeat to Zimbabwe in the warm-up game. However, Michael Clarke and his team have turned around the situation by delivering two strong performances in the back to back games against Pakistan and Bangladesh. However, I see Australian team looked some vulnerable at some points in both the games. No doubt, they defeated Pakistan convincingly, but it is a matter of worry when you lose five wickets in an over that happened in Mohammad Aamer’s last over. Something similar to that incident happened in the Bangladesh match too when Australia lost their 6 top order batsmen only for 65, and unless Hussey and Smith played with responsibility in the end, it could have been another humiliating defeat for the Aussies.

However, Aussies can sheer amount of hope with their pace attack. Nannes, Tait, Mitchell Johnson have been in dominating form at the moment and they pose huge threat for the Indian batting line up. Watson and Harris are also there to help the trio. Captain Michael Clarke also hailed his pacers before the match against India. He said:

''I think these conditions are really going to help our fast bowlers; there was a lot of pace and bounce in that wicket,'' Clarke said after Dirk Nannes took 4-18 and Shaun Tait 1-15.

''Our fast bowlers will bowl as much short stuff as they like. We [the batsmen] cop it in the nets so we'll definitely see it in the game. We've got some pace up our sleeve and I'm sure in these conditions we'll be able to use it.''

With Australian pacers playing at their best, they did not get much help from their spinners. Still, Michael Clarke and Steven Smith can make the task easier for their pacers.

Online Live Score and Updates

You can get the live score and updates of the match between Australia and India in the following websites:

http://www.cricinfo.com/world-twenty20-2010/content/current/series/412671.html

http://cricket.yahoo.com/cricket/series/home?series_id=1194

http://www.cricket365.com/news

Well, I do not see any favorite in the game. Both teams have equal chances, but one thing is for sure that it would be a fight between Indian batsmen and Australian pacers. Cricket fans would like to enjoy a stiff competition between the two giants. Now, let us see who between Australia and India get a winning start at the super eight stage of the tournament.






1 comment:

  1. Australia really won the match in an awesome way yoooo ausiie rocks

    ReplyDelete