India and Australia in World Cup matches.
While the name Australia against India in World Cup matches didn’t bring good memories for the 90s kid, the equation has changed better for Team India in recent outings but Australia has always been a giant name in cricket and every team know if they stand any chance against mighty Kangaroos, they need to bring their A game.
Lets look what has happened so far between these teams in World Cup matches –
1) 1983 Prudential World Cup – India had the same story of crumbling against the mighty kangaroos around 80s.
In the 11th match of Prudential World Cup 1983, which India eventually won, Australia defeated India by significant margin of 162 runs.
Batting first Australia made 320 runs in 60 overs. Trever Chappel scored a century and Rod Marsh who passed away last year was part of the team.
Kapil Dev bowled impressively taking 5 wickets in his 12 overs for 43 runs.
In reply India was all out for only 158 runs.
Kapil Dev once again remained the highest scorer for Team India as he made quickfire 40 runs from 27 balls.
2) 1996 Wills World Cup – The 19th match of Wills World Cup 1996 was more of a level game between the India and Kangaroos.
Australia batted first and got to 258 runs.
Mark Waugh made a splendid century, scoring 126 runs of 135 balls.
In reply, Sachin Tendulkar tried his level best to give a tough competition to kangaroos, making 90 runs from just 84 balls.
He got good support from Sanjay Manjrekar, who came in to bat at number 5 position and scored 62 runs of 91 balls.
India got all out at 248 runs with 16 still requiring of 12 balls.
3) 1999 ICC World Cup – I remembered watching this match live on telivision.
Robin Singh and Ajay Jadeja trying hard to give some competition to Kangaroos, but Australia used to be such a strong team back then.
Australia batted first scoring 282 runs. In reply Australia were 17/4 and then Ajay Jadeja and Robin Singh got a partnership.
Jadeja made 100 of 138 balls and Robin Singh made 75. But all this effort was not enough, as Australia clinched an easy 77 runs victory.
4) 2003 World Cup – India lost only 2 matches in 2003 World Cup and both of them against Australia.
This 11th match played at Centurian, India was undone to just 125 runs, not a good score even for t20 cricket.
Australia chased it easily within 22 overs giving Indian teams and fans a humiliation.
Both of the teams, came against each other for the one final time in the final showdown, but Australia simply looked way above India in every part of the game and easily won the World Cup 2003.
5) 2011 World Cup – India had their chance to change their fortunes when they met the Kangaroos once again in the quarter final of the World Cup played in Ahmedabad.
Australia batting first was restricted to 260 runs which was chased comfortably in the end by India with 14 balls remaining.
No need to mention, Yuvraj Singh was named Man of the Match.
6) 2015 World Cup – India did reach upto Semfinal again in the 2015 World Cup and faced Kangaroo once again.
Batting first Australia made 328 runs from 50 overs. A 25 something less than the 2003 World Cup final and with Indian team playing Rohit Sharma, Dhawan, Kohli, Dhoni, every Indian fan was not that lost at the middle of the innings like they were in 2003 final.
But Mitchell Johnson had other plans for Team India, as he brought the best of him at the big stage to completely uproot the Indian team with quick wickets of Dhawan and Rohit Sharma.
Indian team started really well with 76 runs in 12 overs and it looked like Dhawan and Sharma will take away the match from Kangaroos but a unnecessary shot from Dhawan and then 2 quick wickets of Kohli and Sharma, India suddenly find themselves on backfoot.
Eventually India made only 233 runs, not getting even close to 328 runs and lost the semifinal by big margin of 95 runs.
