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.
This match is important on several grounds for both the teams in contention. One, it will seal the top spot for India if they win; two, if they lose the much talked about law of averages will take care of their loss eventuality before the knockouts though this is hardly an argument the mind masters will agree with.
Incidentally, the only loss Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men on a mission faced in their 2011 campaign was against the South Africans in Nagpur where cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar could not fully celebrate his delightful 100 runs. Another matter though Rohit Sharma was kept out of the campaign back then and only returnees from that edition that can get a déjà vu moment are Virat Kohli and R Ashwin. One of them is unlikely to make it to the playing eleven of a team management that hates to tinker with a winning combination, and the other is too keen to age to 49 at 35, to put the blinkers on.
India is all sorted in all fields and the bigness of the moment cannot not but stare Rohit Sharma and his squad so to even mention that “complacency” word would be a slap on the face of brilliant unit in a happy space of awe-inspiring performances of the Raymond kind. With all guns blazing on both sides, and the hunger to win equally high in both teams, the South Africa vs Indian pacers and vice versa contest, will keep the crescendo on an all-time falsetto for 90,000 fans at Eden Garden waiting to break all sound barriers at the hit of a ball.
Tomorrow, only India can beat India in the mind, or the glorious uncertainty of the game which brings us back to Rohit Sharma’s often-repeated statement – to whoever who plays better on the given day.
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