Pakistan and Australia began the World Cup in drastically different fashion winning and losing both their first 2 matches respectively. However come round 3, Pakistan faced a humiliating defeat at the hands of India while Australia aced their game after the South African disaster to beat Sri Lanka.
Pakistan: The men in green have plenty of questions to answer. Their bowling unit looks completely out of order specially Shaheen and Shadab Khan looking a pale shadow of their past. While Mohammed Rizwan has been in the top 5 run scorers of the World Cup, he has hardly found any support specially one to counterattack the bowling while he takes the game deep. Pakistan's batting appears vanilla with all the batsmen with similar gameplay. Soon they need to find out the X-factor batsman who will take on the bowling in the middle overs.
Australia: The five-time world champions will be a little relaxed following the comfortable victory over Sri Lanka, but completely aware that another defeat could mean winning all to qualify. They will be buoyed to see Zampa and Cummins back in the wickets both of who are crucial in the middle overs. The batting form of the top order remains a concern with just 2 batsmen with 50s in the tournament so far.
Australia Probable XI: D Warner, M Marsh, S Smith, M Labuschagne, J Inglis (WK), G Maxwell, M Stoinis, M Starc, P Cummins (C), A Zampa, J Hazlewood
Pakistan Probable XI: Imam ul Haq, A Shafique, Babar Azam (C), M Rizwan(WK), S Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Usama Mir, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf
Key Players to watch for:
David Warner: Pakistan is easily David Warner’s favorite opponent. He scored a century vs them in 2019 WC and would like to get his first of this century as well.
Imam Ul Haq: Like David Warner, Imam has a special liking for Australia and would like to get his WC campaign going on what promises to be a belter of a wicket.
Interesting stats and facts:
Pakistan has the best W/L ratio in World Cup history Against Australia after SA. Winning 4 and losing 6.
Steven Smith needs 101 runs to score 1000 WC runs
Mitchell Starc(54) needs 3 more wickets to be the 3rd highest wicket-taker of all time in the WC
Weather Report and Pitch:
Bangalore is famous for great weather and a great batting wicket. Expect nothing different on the Saturday bonanza.
Date & Time: 20 October 2023, 2.00 PM (IST)
Venue: Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru.
Live Streaming: Star Sports Network and Disney Hotstar
Dream 11:
