India is in peak form, playing its best cricket in memory
World Cups. But the sheer dominance it has displayed over the one-day game this time is unprecedented. Wednesday’s 70-run win over New Zealand in the first semi-final exemplifies this success.
It marked India’s tenth successive victory in an unbeaten run to the final. The 398-run target set for the Kiwis saw two centuries scored—by Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer— and also had fine knocks by openers Shubman Gill, who made 80 runs off 66 deliveries, and captain Rohit Sharma, who helped subdue Kiwi pacers with a blazing 47 off 29 balls. An asking rate of around 8 runs per over looked less Sisyphean when Daryl Mitchell and Kane Williamson were on the pitch in Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium, forging a 181-run partnership after two early see-offs, but it steepened beyond Kiwi hopes under a splendid spell of Indian bowling, which featured a 7-wicket haul by Mohammed Shami.
And thus were our ‘Men in Blue’ sprung into the final to be played this Sunday. India’s big wins have been huge, some with three-digit run margins on the scoreboard, and our bowlers have bowled out—i.e., taken all 10 wickets of—every other team participating in this premier tournament. As befits a spectacle of such supremacy on the field, and we saw some impressive fielding too, records were smashed with spirited abandon along the way.
Dramatically, Kohli broke Sachin Tendulkar’s 49-ton world record of most centuries in the one-day format by hitting his 50th ton in the semi-final. A World Cup title, therefore, has never appeared so close within grasp. Nor has our team generally looked so unbeatable.
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