🏏 Cricket World Cup 2023: 1st Semi-Final: India vs New Zealand, T#1

1st

The Indian team has done their best till now, and here is a chance to excel. Work hard in silence; let your success be your noise. Success is not a sudden effect; it is a result of grit and determination. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there—you must go beyond that to reach the final.

🏏 Cricket World Cup 2023: 1st Semi-Final: India vs New Zealand 🏏

Team India will take on New Zealand in the semifinals of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai today.

Is there a chink in India's armor? Who knows. Nine different teams took turns unsuccessfully discovering it and with each failed attempt, India's aura grew stronger, their stature more forbidding.

The semifinal is a repeat of the clash between the two sides in the 2019 ODI World Cup at Trent Bridge, which the Black Caps won by 18 runs.

The Men in Blue enter this clash with the Blackcaps after their Diwali victory against Scott Edwards-led Team Netherlands.

Team India won the match against the Netherlands at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium by a whopping 160 runs. New Zealand also won its recent match against the Kusal Mendis-led Sri Lanka by 5 wickets. Incidentally, this match was also held at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

While Team India is in the top spot of the World Cup 2023 points table, New Zealand is on the fourth spot. India has won all nine matches it has played so far against Netherlands, South Africa, England, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Australia.

New Zealand, on the other hand, has won five out of the nine matches it has played so far.

The Blackcaps have won against teams like Sri Lanka, South Africa, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Netherlands, and England. While India has a net run rate (NRR) of 2.570, New Zealand has an NRR of 0.743.

Through this glorious run, Rohit Sharma's men have exuded main character energy to a point where the lack of anxiety on their path has been the leading cause of anxiety among their supporters.

At the start, it was a case of peaking very early. But India kept winning.

Then it was a case of only chasing to win. But then India defended targets in the next four games, even making 229 seem well above par.

the bat, they've breached the 350-mark twice, just as many times as they've bowled the opposition out for double-digit totals.

For all their excellence, India also deserves credit for their admirable endurance of the public expectations they move around with and still being ruthlessly clinical out in the middle.

India have lived with the memory of Manchester for four years now and without a knockout win at an ICC event for even longer.

Tag Credit: Sutapasima

Team Watch:

India

The hosts have had their playing XI locked in for a while and barring a late fitness issue, they will be unchanged for a sixth straight match.

Tactics & Strategy:

The Black Caps will have the greater batting depth with Mitchell Santner coming in at No.8 but will have only four frontline bowlers; the fifth-bowler duties is split among several part-time options. India took the pair of Rachin Ravindra and Glenn Phillips for 58 runs from 11 combined overs in the league fixture at Dharamsala. With spin expected to have a lesser say at the Wankhede Stadium, India will look to ramp up the pressure on the 10 overs that will be bowled by New Zealand's (relatively) lesser bowlers.

Probable XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

New Zealand

Kane Williamson's return has pushed the breakthrough star of the tournament, Rachin Ravindra, up by one place in the batting order and nudged Will Young out of the XI. It's a team the 2019 finalists will stick to for the big semifinal.

Tactics & Strategy:

Daryl Mitchell was the only bowler to put Kuldeep Yadav under any modicum of pressure in the league stage, hitting the left-arm legspinner for straight sixes while also sowing doubts in the spinner's head by bringing out the sweep and the reverse sweep. It is a tactic New Zealand will want their No.4 to reprise and thereby force Rohit to move out from the comforts of his Plan A.

Probable XI: Devon Conway, Rachin Ravindra, Kane Williamson (c), Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Tom Latham (wk), Mark Chapman, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson

IND vs NZ World Cup 2023: Pitch report

The Wankhede Stadium pitch is a batsman's paradise due to its flat wicket, smaller boundaries, and fast outfield. The highest score on this pitch is 438/4 by South Africa against India in 2015. A total of 15 matches have been won on this pitch in case a team chooses to bat first, and 13 matches have been won while chasing.

IND vs NZ World Cup 2023: Mumbai weather report

Mumbai is likely to witness warm weather accompanied by hazy sunshine and 21 percent cloud cover during the daytime. During the night, Mumbai is expected to witness wind gusts speeding up to 22 kmph. There is absolutely no probability of rain and thunderstorms in Mumbai today. Temperatures are expected to hover around 37 degrees Celsius during the day and 26 degrees Celsius during the night, according to accuweather.com.

What to expect: Given the dimensions of the stadium and the true bouncing nature of its pitch, Wankhede should be a great chasing ground. It hasn't quite been the case, with the ball swinging and seaming appreciably under lights. Teams defending scores have won all but one game played here in this World Cup, with the lone exception coming down to an exceptional innings from Glenn Maxwell. The average first-inning score here in this tournament has been 357. Both teams will fancy the luxury of batting when the afternoon sun singes at 34 degrees Celsius, and use the conditions and scoreboard pressure thereafter to press home the advantage.

IND vs NZ World Cup 2023: Head-to-head records

India and New Zealand have faced off in 119 ODI matches, of which India has won 59 clashes against New Zealand. New Zealand, on the other hand, has won 50 matches against India. India has won 24 times when batting first and 35 times when chasing runs. New Zealand has won 28 times when chasing first and 22 times when batting.

Today, at the spiritual home of Indian cricket, Kane Williamson's men will stand shoulder to shoulder with their opposition, as equals.

Even if they are not widely viewed as that, They are by no means underdogs, but it is a tag they have gladly donned for most of their cricketing history and even enjoyed the freedom that comes with it.

They know the pressure will be on India—all the expectations theirs to live up to, the knockouts hoodoo theirs to end, and superstar legacies theirs to uphold. While the opposition contends with so much, New Zealand can go about getting their one-percenters right, matching up well in one-v-one contests, and sweating the small stuff in search of a spark: like a fielder scoring a direct hit running in from deep backward square-leg in the 99th over of the match.

India have lived with the memory of Manchester for four years now and without a knockout win at an ICC event for even longer. They've had a short and sharp two-day gap to this match in Mumbai, which is perhaps for the best in order to avoid over-playing the game in their heads.

They are professional and have far too much experience of big games to treat this semifinal as anything but what it actually is: a cricket match just like the nine before it, which they are perfectly equipped to win, no matter the history, the chatter or the conditions.

They will be unchanged. But then, not too much has changed with them at the World Cup.

Did you know?

- New Zealand have a 25% win rate in ODI World Cup semifinals (2 wins, 6 losses), a poorer record to India's 42.86% (3 wins, 4 losses)

- Kohli averages 12.16 from six knockout games in ODI World Cups. Williamson hasn't been great in his seven games at this stage either. He averages 34.67 with a solitary fifty that came at Old Trafford four years ago.

- With 16 wickets so far, Ravindra Jadeja has gone past Anil Kumble and Yuvraj Singh for most wickets in a World Cup edition for an Indian spinner.

What they said:

"I think we'll be inauthentic if we say that it's just another game. Yes, of course it's a semi-final but I think our processes and what we've done in the lead-up to each and every game is not going to change. We do recognise that it is an important game, it is a knockout game, we have to accept the fact that there is going to be a certain amount of pressure but I think the way we have responded to the pressure so far gives us a lot of belief and a lot of confidence." - Rahul Dravid on the occasion of a World Cup knockout.

"Yeah, yeah, an interesting journey for sure, from sort of it not being a chance to getting close and it becoming a reality and something to target, and certainly feeling really grateful to be here. And then to get back and then break my thumb [laughs].

It's not funny. No, it was quite frustrating and testing but still feeling that it hadn't ruled me out so I still was grateful for that and it's nice to be fitter than perhaps I was yesterday and be sitting here. So personally, it's great to be here and it's nice to be a part of this tournament. These tournaments are special and world events in India certainly add to that." - Kane Williamson reflects on his journey before and during this tournament leading into another knockout appearance.

IND vs NZ World Cup 2023 key players

On the Indian side, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami are among the key players to watch. Team New Zealand also has formidable players such as Kane Williamson (if he plays today), Trent Boult, Rachin Ravindra, Mitchell Santner, Daryl Mitchell, Lockie Ferguson and Devon Conway to give a tough fight to the Men in Blue.

Yeh dekhna hain toh dekh lo

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