Clash of the Titans
It will be the mother of all clashes in the world cup. The winner will enter the final and the loser will exit with their head down.
This particular match between India and Pakistan is been rated as the all time best, where both the teams are head to head in terms of performance.
The teams have their strengths and weakness, the strength of the Indian team is their batting, the batsmen have been performing exceptionally well in the tournament, especially after their 261 runs chase against the Aussies, the batsmen are fully confident to tackle the Pakistani bowlers. Whereas the Pakistan batting is more inconsistent, they have not yet scored or chased 270 plus runs.
The bowling department of Pakistan has an edge over India, as it has six in form bowlers in its arsenal. The Pakistani bowlers have played crucial role in winning the matches. Their discipline bowling have provided them victories against Sri Lanka, Australia and West Indies far more easily as compared to the Indian bowling attack which is mostly led by Zaheer Khan. The Indian bowling department is more spin dependent rather than the pace bowling.
Where as in terms of fielding, it seems both the teams are equal. The quality of Indian fielding has improved considerably and was witnessed during the India-Australia face off.
It all depends upon the wicket and toss to select batting or bowling. The Mohali wicket is known to be batsmen friendly and to assist the pacers a bit, often under the lights. Spinners hardly getting any assistance from it.
For team India, one of the advantages is that Pakistan has not chased a big total successfully yet in the world cup. They have just chased the target below 200 runs with due credit to their bowlers. So India can build a big target and can put pressure on inconsistent Pakistani batting line up.
In this entire tournament, Pakistan had to rely on their bowlers to win the match, and they have performed well. Irrespective of bowling first or second, they have managed to restrict the opponents below a challenging target except the kiwis.
If it’s Yuvraj Singh for India then it’s Shahid Afridi for Pakistan. Both are the key players who have performed brilliantly for their teams.
For this semi-finals match both the teams are looking for changes in the team.
Pakistanis are looking to include Shoiab Akhtar and exclude Wahab Riaz, on the other side India have to take a tough decision to select a pacer and rest a spinner. It can be inform Ashwin or experienced Harbhajan who will be rested or by going with both the spinners, aggressive Sreesanth or unmotivated Nehra can be selected to replace Munaf. There are also chances that the Indian team will remain the same.
It will be blast of a match, one just cannot underestimate the weakness of each other, as Pakistani batsmen have a habit of playing well against India and the India bowlers can also be dangerous against the arch rivals.
Tags: Chandigarh, Cricket, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, India, Mohali, Pakistan, World Cup
