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Key events
Josh Hazlewood, the prince of party parsimony, let’s start at the other end.
1st over: India 5-0 (Sharma 5, Kohli 0) Full toss to start from Starc and Sharma misses, hitting straight to the fielder at backward point. the next ball is headed wide of the lanes but Sharma fingers it to hit it behind. A brief pause while the third umpire looked, but he definitely bounced. We’re leaving. shot! Starc takes aim at the booming swinger but it goes away on the leg side, Rohit bowls wide of mid off for India’s first boundary. Sharma slides one to deep third and Kohli stays honest with two to end the first over.
right Let’s play. Mitch Starc has the ball in hand, Rohit Sharma will face the first ball. I’m taking off!
How they stand:
St. Lucia looks incredibly beautiful as the players come out for the anthems. I think I’d give a few fingers to be there. Not that the sun doesn’t shine in South London. Actually, I take it all back. You can boast turquoise water and exotic rum-based cocktails. I’m in awe of my temporary traffic lights and outrageously expensive continental beer.
Jeff Lemon’s look at Afghanistan’s win over the Aussies it’s usually skilful and well worth a read before the game kicks off in St. Lucia in about ten minutes.
Maybe I was a little too wild in the 70s presumptuous in my preamble? It turns out that India is not fully armored. Stealing this paragraph from the mighty Matt Roller.
“For India to be knocked out, Australia and Afghanistan will have to win by a wide margin. Australia will need to beat India by 41 runs to overtake them in pace, while Afghanistan will need to beat Bangladesh by at least 83 runs.’
“Hi James”
Good day Peter Salmon.
“Of course I’m Australian, but I suppose all neutrals will want Australia to win to keep alive the remarkable possibility of them being world champions in all three formats?”
Ah yes, just got it *officially confirmed* Pete. everything neutrals do support Australia. (Hmm).
Teams:
Australia: Travis Head, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh (w), Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Tim David, Matthew Wade (wt), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood.
India: Rohit Sharma (capt), Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah.
Mitchell Starc returns for Ashton Agar, India are unchanged from their previous two meetings.
Australia win the toss and elect to field first!
Mitch Marsh bowls correctly and decides he wants to see India use the wicket first. There has been a bit of rain around but conditions are looking good at the moment, if a bit stormy. Confirmed arriving teams!
A slightly cooler, cloudier morning today compared to most of last week and some heavy rain overnight – but it hasn’t rained for a few hours and we expect any showers to pass quickly
— Matt Roller (@mroller98) June 24, 2024
Preamble
James Wallace
Hello and welcome to Crunch Time at T20 World Cup. Two titans go head-to-head in St Lucia today, with Australia having to do anything to reach the semi-finals and their shock loss to Afghanistan dashing any hopes of things getting any easier.
They’ve also had plenty of recent run-ins with today’s opponents, high-profile ding dongs, which serve to give this one an extra needle. How so? Well Australia are looking to win their third ICC gong after winning the fifty over World Cup and World Test Championship last year. Who did they beat in both finals? You guessed it – India.
India have already booked their place in the last four along with England and South Africa. Australia need to win and avoid going down to the wire to make it difficult for Bangladesh or Afghanistan to beat them when they meet in Kingstown later today. We can get into the permutations soon, it’s safe to say they make my head tingle a bit.
I’ll be back for team news and the draw shortly before play kicks off at 3.30pm BST.
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