Mumbai, November 14 (Language) The Indian team, which has won nine consecutive matches in the league stage, is full of confidence but now the previous performance in the knockout stage does not matter and it will have to give its best performance against New Zealand in the first semi-final of the World Cup on Wednesday.
The defeat against the same team in the 2019 World Cup in Manchester will still be fresh in the mind of the Indian team. New Zealand also defeated India in the 2021 ICC World Test Championship final.
This time the performance of the Indian team has been so tremendous that there is hope that the wait for the title will end. Rohit Sharma’s team knows very well that any mistake at Wankhede Stadium will break the hearts of crores of fans. India won the ODI World Cup after 28 years in 2011 at this Wankhede Stadium.
India will have to live up to the huge pressure of expectations. Captain Rohit and coach Rahul Dravid know what happens when they fail to live up to expectations. However, he will have to remove the fear of failure from his players and motivate them for their best performance.
Indian cricket fans will pray that Rohit wins the toss and takes the right decision. The team chasing the target on this ground has been losing wickets early under floodlight because the new ball gets tremendous swing.
The bowlers of India and New Zealand can prove to be dangerous with the new ball. In such a situation, a lot will depend on India’s opening batsmen Rohit and Shubman Gill.
Rohit has scored 503 runs in the tournament so far and would like to continue this momentum. Gill has scored only 270 runs in seven matches and he would like to play a special innings. Virat Kohli has scored the highest number of 593 runs in the tournament and is on the verge of scoring a record 50th century in ODIs. He would like to touch this figure with India’s victory.
Kohli would also like to break the trend of early dismissals in the semi-finals. He was out for one run in the semi-finals in 2019 and 2015.
India will also expect good performance from middle-order batsmen KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer.
Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav have performed brilliantly in bowling while Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj have supported them well. Its bowlers have proved to be the key to India’s success in this World Cup. On the other hand, New Zealand also has fast bowlers like Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Lockie Ferguson and experienced bowlers like left arm spinner Mitchell Santner.
New Zealand has no lack of experience in batting. Young Rachin Ravindra has scored 565 runs and is in search of this tournament. However, Devon Conway has not been able to play any big innings after scoring unbeaten 152 runs against England in the first match. Captain Kane Williamson and Daryl Mitchell will command the middle order.
Teams :
India: Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Lokesh Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Prasidh Krishna.
New Zealand: Tom Latham (captain), Devon Conway, Will Young, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, James Neesham, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson, Matt Henry.
Match time: 2 pm onwards.
Language
Mona Sudhir
-Sudhir
