It has boiled down to a straight knockout game between two traditional powerhouses of the game. Hosts India have found the going tougher in the ICC World T20 than in the games prior to it. A hard-fought win against Bangladesh must put them in a confident mood but Australia aren’t too far behind. They have already won a game, convincingly against Pakistan, on the same ground just a night ago. So they must be quite buoyant as well.

Neither team’s journey to this stage has been a fluent one. Australia have wrestled with their batting order and finding the right men for the right spots had been a big concern. It had affected their rotation of strike in the middle overs. But that was rectified thanks to Steven Smith in their last game. That Australia managed to put on their best batting performance automatically made their batting order look more potent as well. They, much like India, possess an array of match-winners with the bat. But it also matters a lot in which position they play in and the one that featured against Pakistan might be the one they stick with for the game against India as well.

MS Dhoni’s men have not struggled with their eleven as much as they fought for rhythm. They were on a roll prior to the World T20 but the loss against New Zealand in the first game did rattle them. Two out of the three men who had played key roles before the tournament have failed to find their touch so far. So a lot rests upon Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan, apart from Virat Kohli to shore up the batting unit. It hasn’t helped their cause that they have played on turning or slow pitches so far in each of their games.

So far, the pitches at Mohali, have been on the slower side but definitely truer and has made batting a look easy. It is a ‘typical T20 pitch’ according to popular definition. One in which the batsmen can trust blind swings to carry over the ropes. However it remains to be seen if the pitch used tomorrow will play similar. The teams, mind you, will be playing on a pitch that is 40 overs old even before the game starts (the India-West Indies women’s game will be played on the same pitch). So there is every chance that it might break up as the game progresses.

Teams:

Australia (From): Aaron Finch, Usman Khawaja, David Warner, Steven Smith(c), Glenn Maxwell, Shane Watson, James Faulkner, Peter Nevill(w), Nathan Coulter-Nile, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Marsh, Andrew Tye, John Hastings, Ashton Agar

India (From): Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni(w/c), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ashish Nehra, Jasprit Bumrah, Harbhajan Singh, Mohammed Shami, Pawan Negi, Ajinkya Rahane

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