Kolkata: In the tournament’s most awaited clash, an unbeaten India meet title contenders South Africa here on Virat Kohli’s 35th birthday to decide who will hold the table top at Eden Gardens, a ground that is passionately in love with intense cricketing contests.
If it is a special day for birthday boy Virat Kohli looking for his 49th ODI hundred, it is also skipper Rohit Sharma's favourite hunting ground for a massive score. It is here that Rohit Sharma’s surreal blade cut an unbeaten record 264 runs punctuated with 33 boundaries and nine sixes against Sri Lanka back in 2014. Both the Indian icons are hungry and in searing form, ready to stride on to a pitch that has a soft corner for sharp, intelligent and dogged bats.
On their part, the South Africans have been putting the pitches on fire with their 300 plus colossal totals, pivoted on Quinton de Kock's dream run in his last tournament. They have many records in their kitty this World Cup, including the highest score of 428/5 against Sri Lanka inserting the shock and awe element to monumental build-ups.
Their dream run this far in the tournament tells you that batting first is when they audaciously dangle the catch me if you can carrot before oppositions. Twice when they had to chase in this edition, they fell to minnows The Netherlands and just about scraped through against Pakistan, thanks to Keshav Maharaj and his ultimate six. So, choosing to bat will be their dream wish as also Rohit Sharma’s though India have shown they are as good chasers as they are openers.
Ground reality is, the Protean run pounders will be looking to fight the fear of the tournament’s best bowling attack by dominating them into disarray, a possibility that finds itself weak before the razor edge strikes that Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Siraj and Mohammad Shami have shown at the most critical junctures of the game.
Be it the Powerplay strikes by Bumrah and Siraj at the mouth of the defence, or breaking partnerships in the middle overs on the awesome turns of Kuldeep Yadav, or Shami completing his fivers in death run showers — for the South African batters it will, indeed, be a constant challenge that can only be met with constant aggression.
In a heartbreak development, all-rounder Hardik Pandya has been ruled out for the entire tournament due to the ankle injury he acquired in a follow through run-up in the game against Bangladesh. The boon in disguise is that the changed combination compelled by Hardik Pandya’s absence will concretise the place of Suryakumar Yadav and Mohammed Shami in the playing eleven.