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This World Cup will spring to life if India and Australia produce a fascinating battle today
Today it should be a full house in Chennai and hopefully these two title contenders will give fans a match to remember
India's captain Rohit Sharma with teammate Ravindra Jadeja during a practice session. — PTI
We have seen four matches in the 15th edition of the ICC World Cup, but it has not been a great start so far with sparsely crowded stadiums witnessing some one-sided battles in India.
But today, when hosts India clash with five-time champions Australia in Chennai, it should be a full house as all tickets have been sold out and we should have a cracker of a game.
There is already drama before the match with Shubman Gill down with fever and looks unlikely to play — even though he has not been ruled out by head coach Rahul Dravid who said in the press conference that the batsman is recovering well.
But if the Gill does not take the field, India will suffer a huge blow as he has been India's stand out player this year in the ODI format, scoring 1230 runs in 20 innings at a staggering average of 72.32 with five hundreds and five half centuries.
Both Rohit Sharma and Gill have given good starts with the bat for India when opening the batting together.
Australia too will heave a sigh of relief if Gill is not playing. The opener scored a hundred and 74 and looked at ease against all Australian pace bowlers.
Australia's captain Pat Cummins bowls during a practice session. — PTI
Moreover, Gill will also be missed as a fielder as he is excellent in the slip cordon.
India do have pocket dynamo Ishan Kishan to replace Gill and partner Rohit and this will definitely test the character of the 25-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman.
One advantage of having Ishan is that he is left-handed to negate Adam Zampa but for that he needs to survive the Australian brutal pace attack of Michell Starc, captain Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.
That the match is played in Chennai, India will play home boy Ravichandran Ashwin who has a good record against the Aussies and will be handy in spin friendly conditions of Chennai.
India had beaten Australia the last they met in the World Cup in their first game at the Oval, but Australia will have good memories of the last match they played at Chennai when they beat India to win the series.
Having produced five one-sided games, this World Cup now needs a riveting contest to get the fans on their feet.
These two teams are more than capable of delivering a thriller before the big game between India and Pakistan on October 14.
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