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Australia…a team which has won the World Cup maximum 5 times. This team won the World Cup title for the first time by defeating England in 1987. The thing to note here is that the 1987 World Cup was held in India only.
Today India’s World Cup Connection talks about Team Australia. Also, our cricket expert Ayaz Memon told how Australia becomes the biggest hurdle for India in every World Cup…
When Indian players dreamed of playing with Bradman…
The rivalry between India and Australia in World Cup matches has emerged in the last 20-22 years. There was a time when Australia used to be very dominant over India. India’s first Australian cricket tour took place in the year 1947-48. During this period, the captain from the Indian team was Lala Amarnath and Don Bradman from Australia. When I spoke to Lala Amarnath, he told that at that time there was a feeling among our players that we would get a chance to see Bradman and play with him. Gradually, due to players like Ganguly-Kumble, there was a cultural change in the team and our team started playing matches by looking the players in the eye.
Playing in front of Bradman was once a dream for Indian cricketers.
The game and confidence of the Indian team changed after 2004…
Due to the confidence given by Ganguly-Kumble, in the year 2004, the Indian team defeated Australia for the first time on their soil. Then in the years 2018 and 2020-21, India defeated Australia in the series on their own soil. IPL has played a big role behind this. Due to IPL, Indian young players got a chance to become familiar with Australian players, while Australian players also learned to play spin bowling to such an extent that India decided not to play Ashwin in the WTC final. It took almost 50 years to reach here.
Players of Australia and India came closer due to IPL
All the captains of Australia have been aggressive…
The captain plays a big role in winning the match. In my opinion, till date no Australian captain has been defensive. Captains like Ponting used to play the game by putting pressure on the opposing team from the very beginning of the match. The rest of the players of the team are also influenced by this style of the captain. He came to play for India at a very young age and was dropped from the team due to discipline, but soon returned to the team.
Aggression became the identity of Australia
All eyes on Australia and India in 2023: Experts
Like Australia, India also started playing matches like counter attack, an example of which was seen in the match played in Brisbane in 1993. The Indian team gave a tough fight to Australia but India lost the match by 1 run. Even after losing this match, a change was visible in the mindset of the Indian team. Similar performance was seen once again in the 2003 World Cup. Even after reaching the final, India could not chase a big score due to the tremendous century innings of Ricky Ponting. India lost this match by 125 runs but by then India had the mindset to compete with Australia in a big tournament. The result of this mindset was that in the World Cup quarter-finals played in Ahmedabad in 2011, India defeated the Australian team led by Ricky Ponting by 5 wickets. Yuvraj Singh showed tremendous performance in this match. In the year 2015, India once again lost to Australia, but by then the performance of the Indian players had made it clear that the Indian team is a strong contender for a big tournament like the World Cup. According to all the cricket experts, eyes will be on the Indian team and Australia in the World Cup to be held in 2023. But England and Pakistan also cannot be taken lightly.