The Overview:
Landscape gazing from an aircraft window can make for a fun exercise. Because each city, when viewed from an elevation, has a story to tell. Those with a window seat on the way to Adelaide get a great sight of The Oval. Even from a thousand feet up in the air, it's hard to miss the stadium nestled in a leafy part of the South Australian capital just north of the city centre. It is three parts modern mega-structure with its bulbous white canopies and one part grass bank at the northern end housing the old scoreboard. A great blend of the new with the old. The architectural revamp was mostly well received in 2014, which is not always a given, for it risked tampering with charm and history that traverses back to the Chappells, Bradman and beyond.
Like the venue of their semifinal, India is a country that maybe moving forward by way of disposition, but loves tethering itself to history. It's also reflected in the country's T20 game. For long it was characterised by a sense of pragmatism that didn't quite do justice to the available talent pool. Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid had little choice but to consider the alternate theory after the muddle that engulfed the team's campaign last year, and their project redesign gathered momentum through several bilaterals. Until they landed in Australia, where early-season conditions flipped that narrative on its head.
But India have had little trouble tapping into their history and playing a brand of cricket that, like the Oval, is part modern and part antique. Suryakumar Yadav and Arshdeep Singh have brought freshness to their game while the enduring class of Virat Kohli has kept them afloat when the going has encountered the rough sea. This journey now faces its moment of truth against England, for whom Adelaide was a major line in the sand with regards to their white-ball cricket.
The first men's World Cup knockout encounter between these two sides in 35 years therefore has the potential to produce a seismic collision. In one corner are cricket's big boys who haven't won the big prizes in a while. The last of them, incidentally, came against England in a 20-over game. For Jos Buttler and Co., the semifinal is an opportunity to both get to a third final in five straight ICC events as well as prove they are ahead in the white-ball evolutionary curve. The journey to this point may have been different for these sides but the intended destination is the same. The format is short and fickle enough for either team to explain a defeat at this stage, but the invitation to climb back up to the top of the world is so richly gold-embossed that nobody will play down the importance of winning.
When: India vs England, ICC men's T20 World Cup 2022, 2nd semifinal, November 10, 18:30 Local, 13:30 IST
Where: Adelaide Oval
What to expect: The sun has been out and about in Adelaide over the last few days and while the city witnessed a few spells of rains on the eve of the semifinal, the game day itself is forecast to be all clear. There have been three different pitches used over the last week and this particular game is expected to be played on the one that was used for the New Zealand - Ireland and Australia - Afghanistan games.
As ever, the challenge in Adelaide, in contrast to the other venues in this tournament, is that the fielding sides have shorter square boundaries to protect. While India have played here (vs Bangladesh), this will be England's first match at this venue in this competition. Teams batting first have a 4-2 win-loss record in Adelaide in Super 12 with an average 1st innings total of 157, which is only ahead of Perth (125) and Hobart (117).
T20I Head to Head: India 12 - England 10. India also hold a 2-1 record over England in T20 World Cups and won by a similar margin in the series contested by these sides in July this year.
Team Watch:
India
Injuries/Unavailable:Rohit copped a blow to his right forearm while batting in the nets two days out from the game but batted without discomfort thereafter. He confirmed it was a minor bruising and that he is fit for the game.
Tactics & Matchups: Bhuvneshwar Kumar has an outstanding record against the England captain, Jos Buttler, who he has dismissed five times in 30 balls bowled at him in T20Is. Bhuvneshwar effectively decided the course of these contests with his PowerPlay spell in the last series between these sides.
India have one selection call to make for the semifinal and that is the identity of their keeper-bat. While Karthik batted two days out from the game, Rishabh Pant had a long net session on the eve of the match and followed that up with a conversation with head coach Dravid. India are likely to favour the southpaw to quell the Adil Rashid challenge.
Probable XI: KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma (c), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant/Dinesh Karthik (wk), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh
England
Injuries/Unavailable: England are sweating over the fitness of both Dawid Malan (groin) and Mark Wood (stiffness). Buttler said the team was willing to give the pair until the morning of the game to get fit. The former looks a less likely participant of the two especially with Phil Salt, his likely replacement, put through his paces in a lengthy net session.
Tactics & Matchups: Sam Curran, who has been in excellent form since returning from injury, has a great head to head against Hardik Pandya, who he is likely to come up against in the death overs. Curran has dismissed Pandya twice in eight balls bowled to him in T20Is. The match-up could well be distilled down to the death overs where Curran has conceded just a solitary boundary in 40 balls (7 wickets at 4.80 ER) while India have been the best batting team in this phase, scoring at 11.60 in this phase in comparison to the Super 12 average of 8.66.
Probable XI: Alex Hales, Jos Buttler (c&wk), Ben Stokes, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Phil Salt, Sam Curran, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood/David Willey
Did you know?
- No team has won a men's T20I at the Adelaide Oval after winning the toss in 11 games
- KL Rahul is one six away from becoming the 14th player and third Indian to the mark of 100 T20I sixes
- India's middle order has managed six 50+ scores while none of the England middle-order batters have yet aggregated 60 runs across the tournament.
What they said:
"He likes playing on the big grounds. He hates playing on small grounds. As he told me once, he doesn't like the smaller boundaries, smaller grounds [because] he can't see the gaps. I believe that he likes to see big gaps, and that's where his strength is," - Rohit Sharma on Suryakumar Yadav's great form at this World Cup.
" I think having talked to the groundsman, his team is really confident that he's had a lot of time to get some really good work into the wicket. He seems very comfortable that it's going to be a really good surface and a consistent surface. At the moment I have no worries about the pitch." - Jos Buttler doesn't believe the toss is going to be a major factor in this semifinal
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T20