Any captain of a cricket team winning the toss in Chennai would want to bat first, owing to the dry conditions in the city. At India’s first match in World Cup 2023 on Sunday, October 8, Pat Cummins, the Australian skipper, had an edge over India as he won the toss, and chose to bat first with only two spinners in the team. Australia had to see an early blow when Virat Kohli took a stunning catch of Australian opener Mitchell Marsh, after getting the edge of the bat for the good length delivery of Bumrah. Kohli’s reaction time to take the catch is said to be 0.72 seconds.
After losing an early wicket, Warner and Smith slowly hinged on a partnership before Warner was caught by Kuldeep Yadav in his own delivery. Everything seemed fine for the Aussies until Smith was bowled out by Ravindra Jadeja in the 28th over with the ball turning more than 5°. Jadeja strikes Smith for the 11th time in his career.
Continuing the spell in the 30th over, Jadeja took two more important wickets in a span of three balls. By then, Australia were down for 119-5. Maxwell on the crease reduced the pressure by hitting a boundary after 73 deliveries. But Kuldeep Yadav disrupted the flow and bowled out Maxwell in a well-pitched leg cutter. Australia then somehow managed to bring up the score to 199 runs, before being bowled out in the 50th over.
India came to bat after fielding for 50 overs in extremely hot and humid conditions. They looked comfortable with the target being relatively low compared to that of the average runs in this venue. But the Aussies had other plans, Mitchell Starc took a wicket in the very first over of the second innings, while Ishan Kishan tried to play a ball outside of the off stumps which went straight into the hands of Cameron Green. It was the 50th wicket for Starc in the ODI World Cup.
Josh Hazlewood came into the attack in the second over and took the skipper out for an LBW. Rohit was helpless, and the review too, ruled him out for the rest of the game. Shreyas in the same over played an irresponsible shot which led to him losing the wicket, and the Aussies were back in the game after messing up the Indian top order. Shreyas and Ishan Kishan miserably missed the opportunity to capitalise on the chance they were provided.
At that moment, the Aussies had the game in hand with no run coming off the bat for India and the scorecard looked like a football result (2-3). Kohli was dropped by Marsh in the eighth over when India was 20 for 3. Marsh smiled after dropping the catch, he didn’t realise how costly that miss was. It was just not his day. Kohli then soaked all the pressure and built a fantastic partnership along with KL Rahul who was equally fascinating to watch.
They invigorated the hopes of all the Indians and played responsible innings. India were 80-3 in 20 overs and 120-3 in 30 overs. Australia would have missed that extra spinner at this stage of the game. Both the players resisted from playing lofted shots and saved everything for the end. In that situation, it was better to stay on the ground than to hit the ball and lose the wicket.
The 165-run partnership came to an end when Kohli tried to hit a short ball by Hazlewood Sadly, he missed out on a century. This has to be one of the finest innings from him considering the conditions he played. KL then had a party of boundaries but he too missed out on a century by just three runs after hitting the ball for a six, when the team needed five to win. He was on 91 at that moment, and kneeled sadly after hitting that six, which he seemed to have hoped would go for a boundary. India won over Australia by six wickets.
Anyway, this is an important victory for India and would boost morale among the players for the upcoming matches in the campaign. Virat Kohli registered some important records on Sunday with his splendid innings.
Most 50+ scores as Non-Opener (113)
Fastest to 13,000 ODI runs as a non-opener
Fastest to 11,000 ODI runs at No.3
Most runs in successful ODI chases (5,517)
Most runs for India in ICC events (2,785)
Most catches as an Indian fielder in the World Cup
Meanwhile, many people took to social media to raise questions about the Chepauk stadium having a large number of empty seats throughout the match. Gujarat too barely had people to watch the opening game on October 5, and on Sunday, the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai too was nearly half-empty when the match started. It was said that 33,000 people attended the match and the capacity of the stadium was 38,000. However, many people pointed out that it didn’t look like a stadium which had 86% occupancy. BookMyShow even reopened the bookings for the match just four hours before it started, leading to many people questioning if there is mismanagement or attempts to sell tickets illegally on the black market.
India will play Afghanistan in the next match which is scheduled to take place on October 11, at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium.