IN THE second quarter final match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, defending champion Australia will take on host India at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera, Ahmedabad on Thursday, March 24.
Both countries had met in a Cricket World Cup encounter last time in the final of the 2003 ICC Cricket World Cup, played in Johannesburg on March 23, 2003, where Australia defeated India by 125 runs. Meanwhile, in the warm-up match prior to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, India defeated Australia by 38 runs.
On Indian soil both team have met 44 times and the record is again in favour of the Australians by 23-17 (NR- 4).
In World Cup matches, Australia have beaten India in seven of the nine encounters.
At the Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera, the two world champs played each other almost 25 years back. At this venue India has featured in 13 occasions and won five matches, while one game was cancelled.
On the way to the quarter finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, India beat Bangladesh, Ireland, Netherlands and West Indies by 87 runs, five wickets each and 80 runs respectively, whereas lost to South Africa by three wickets. However, one match against England ended in a tie.
Defending ICC Cricket World Cup champion Australia started mission 2011 with a 91-run victory against Zimbabwe. In the next match, Australia won against New Zealand by seven wickets. In the third match, due to rain, the match was washed away and both Australia and Sri Lanka shared one point each.
In the next two matches against minnows Kenya and Canada, the four-time Cricket World Cup champion Australia won by 60 runs and seven wickets. In the last group league match of Australia, Pakistan stopped their 34-match winning streak by four wickets.
Indian batting line-up seems to have an upper hand for the host. Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sahwag, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh are performing consistently.
Yuvraj Singh has already won three man of the match awards in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. However, failure of Indian lower middle order is definitely a big concern for the team management. Zaheer Khan has already picked 15 wickets in the on-going tournament.
Australian batsmen Shane Watson, Brad Haddin, Michael Clarke, and Michael Hussey are in prime form. However, captain Ricky Ponting has not played any remarkable innings in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.
Their fast bowlers Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee and Shaun Tait can create some problems for Indian batsmen.
The second quarter final match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 between India and Australia will start from 2:30 PM IST. Star Sports and Star Cricket will telecast this match live.
Here are the squads of India and Australia for the second quarter final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011:
India (Probable): MS Dhoni (capt/wk), Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, R. Ashwin, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel.
Australia (Probable): Ricky Ponting (capt), Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin (wk), David Hussey, Michael Hussey, Shane Watson, Cameron White, Mitchell Johnson, Jason Krejza, Brett Lee, Shaun Tait.
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