Australia Look To Continue Domination of India
By A. Subramanian
March 21 2015
After a season of totally dominating India at home prior to the World Cup, Australia once again face India. This time however India are coming in with 7 victories in a row and Australia face the added pressure of playing at home as they take on India in a key semi-final clash for the World Cup. However, they are confident that they can continue to dominate a team that they bullied for much of the season before the tournament.
Australia sealed their place in the semi-final with a six-wicket win over Pakistan on Friday. They face India next in their semi-final clash which is set to be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground in five days’ time. India are on a roll having won all their matches thus far. And Glen Maxwell reckoned they had to be at their best to beat an in-form Indian side. “India are a very good side, they wouldn’t be here in the semi-finals if they weren’t a good side,” Maxwell said. “We have to bring our A game forward when we play them this week.”
India don’t have the best of memories of an Australian summer having lost the Tests and the tri-series, something that Maxwell believed would be playing in their opponent’s mind come Thursday. “I think we targeted them pretty well this summer. They haven’t won a game against us all summer and I hope that is pretty clear in their memories. We’ve been dominant all summer in the ODI format and hopefully we can continue it.”
When asked if playing in the IPL and having faced most of the crux of this Indian bowling unit would be of some help, Maxwell said, “The IPL is a bit different to the World cup in terms of pressure and situations. I bat at No.6 and there are still five guys ahead of me who are going to be batting first. Hopefully they can make the most of the conditions. My job is to finish it off.”
Maxwell also looked at it as an even contest between bat and ball instead of stressing on a contest between Australia’s bowling and India’s batting might. It is a no brainer that India is a batting power house with the bulk of the batsmen getting runs this tournament. When stressed upon targeting Virat Kohli in particular, Maxwell said there won’t be any drastic difference in game plans. Instead, they would stick to what has worked for them against him in the past. “We haven’t had a team meet yet but it will be pretty similar to the summer,” he said. “We did pretty well during the summer against him. I am sure we will go ahead with similar plans and we will have a few tricks up our sleeve.”
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015:04:09:02:24:38 by Birbal.
Aussie team has too many match winners - it is highly unlikely that all them will fail collectively..