India began their ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 journey today with the opening match against Australia at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Sunday, 8th October. After defeating Australia by 6 wickets, India is placed in 5th position in the 2023 World Cup Points Table with 2 points and a net run rate of +0.883.
Australia, on the other hand, has slipped to 6th place in the points table with a net run rate of -0.883. Making a great start to their ICC World Cup campaign, India defeated Australia by 6 wickets on Sunday.
The Indian team had a weak start and Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Iyer, and Ishan Kishan were out with zero runs. Despite a poor start, where the Indian team lost 3 wickets for just 2 runs on the scoreboard, half-centuries from Virat Kohli and KL Rahul helped India to chase the 200-run target easily.
The win came in the 42nd over, as they reached the target of 200 runs with 6 wickets remaining. KL Rahul, unbeaten on 97*, and Virat Kohli, who scored 85 runs in the innings, were the architects of this run-chase. Kohli and Rahul’s amazing partnership of 165 runs for the 4th wicket proved to be the turning point of the match, which led to India’s victory in 41.2 overs.
Earlier, India showed a disciplined bowling performance from all the bowlers and restricted the Australian team to 199 runs. Australian Captain Pat Cummins decided to bat first after winning the toss but the Australian team struggled a lot with the spell of Indian bowlers and could only score 199 runs in 49.3 overs.
The Indian spin trio of Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, and Ravichandran Ashwin also helped India by restricting the Australian team to a modest score of 199/10 in 49.3 overs. Left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja was the star performer of the match, taking 3 wickets for 38 runs with his brilliant bowling performance in the middle overs. Kuldeep Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah took two wickets while Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammad Siraj, and Hardik Pandya took 1 wicket.
For Australia, Steven Smith scored 46 runs on 71 balls, while David Warner scored 41 runs on 52 balls. Apart from David Warner and Steven Smith, no Australian batsman could last long on the Chepauk pitch, the credit for this goes to the amazing bowling attack by the Indian bowlers.