Australia Lose to Host India in Cricket World Cup Opener

Australia fell to host India in their opening Cricket World Cup match as their bats were unable to get going. 

Australia has begun its 2023 Cricket World Cup journey with a loss to hosts and tournament favourites India. The Indian bowlers overwhelmed Australia’s batsmen as they were all out for just 199. This left a very achievable target number for India who cruised to the victory. It’s a tough way to start the tournament for Australia.

Recap of Australia Vs. India

The city of Chennai played host to the two favourites at the 2023 Cricket World Cup as Australia and India squared off in the opening match of the tournament for each team. The game wasn’t the hard-fought, tight battle that many expected but nonetheless was exciting. 

India was favoured in the match by betting sites coming in and had the added confidence of having beaten Australia earlier this month. They succeeded once again in defeating the Aussies as our batsmen had no answer for their spin bowlers. 

Australia won the toss and elected to bat first, likely hoping to put up a big number to keep the crowd at bay and put pressure on the home team. Unfortunately for the Aussies, this is not the result they got. Instead, India would have quite an easy time in this one. 

As expected, the veteran tandem of David Warner and Mitchell Marsh were atop the order for Australia with Warner leading off. 

It was shambles early for Australia as Warner mustered just five runs and Marsh zero before India claimed their first wicket thanks to a diving catch from Virat Kohli sending Marsh out with no runs. 

This brought Steve Smith into the match much earlier than he would have expected. He and Warner found some success in bringing Australia back into the match. Warner was ousted in the 16th over with 41 runs but he and Smith had fought back to get the Aussies to 74-2. 

Smith was then joined by Magnus Labuschagne. Smith worked his way to 46 before losing his wickets to Ravindra Jadeja. Shortly after Labuschagne was given out on just 27. 
Alex Carey was then out on just the second ball he faced as the Aussies were at 119-5.

The back end of Australia’s order was understandably unable to carry the load for their team as they worked their way to just 199 all out. 

Australian bowlers had a difficult task in that India needed just 200 runs to claim victory. They came out roaring as Mitchell Starc gave up just two runs before claiming his first wicket. This was immediately followed up by Josh Hazlewood bowling superbly to the tune of two more wickets and no runs given up as India sat at 2-3. 

It was a dream start for Australia and all of a sudden victory seemed achievable. That’s when Virat Kohli and KL Rahul happened. 

The Aussies had a golden opportunity to split up this partnership in just the 8th over.  Kohli, sitting on 12 runs at the time, popped a ball to leg gully and Mitch Marsh called off wicketkeeper Alex Carey to make the catch himself. The only problem? He dropped it. 

After this it seemed all the momentum belonged to the Indians as the pair of Kohli and Rahul went on to put up 182 runs as Rahul finished on 97 not out while Kohli was ousted at 85.

Hardik Pandya then joined Rahul for India as the pair took the host country to 201 with six wickets remaining.

Australia’s Bowling Under Skepticism 

Before the match and especially afterwards, questions about Australia’s bowlers were raised. The Aussies had Adam Zampa as their only available frontline spinner whereas India had three spinners, all who wreaked havoc against the Australians. 

The pitch surface in Chennai is known to favour harsh spin, something that Australia was certainly aware of. 

Though Australia’s frontline men in Starc and Hazlewood performed respectably, once the ball got a bit chewed up, they were largely neutralized. 

Australia had the difficult task of matching up with world number one and hosts India in their opening match of the Cricket World Cup. Their performance left much to be desired but with plenty of matches to get themselves right, Australia is certainly still a threat.