India vs New Zealand Preview Before Match || South Africa vs Australia Preview || Midnight Edition

Edition #2

Intro

Welcome back to All Around Cricket. The best place to get the best of the best cricket news. Anyways, for all you Indians and/or Indian National Cricket fans, you have a big game coming up, or maybe we, not you, but I’m an Australian fan, so I don’t think I count. New Zealand is a very good team. In many aspects. Let’s continue this in the actual thingy.

India vs New Zealand Preview

In fact, many Indians I’ve interviewed say that India WILL LOSE, but some say they’ll win, because of record. (I’m continuing from the thing above.)

India has advantages.

They are on home turf, they’re feared.

But

They played 3 days back… While New Zealand played 6 days back…

What do I think?

India will win. New Zealand is the final seed in this, and I guess we can say they barely came into this. It was a tight race. But it doesn’t mean India will succeed by like a million runs. It will be a close match. Something that hasn’t happened in ages, but it will. It’s the playoffs, after all.

India Data:

India is well stocked in all departments, with star batter Virat Kohli the tournament’s leading batsman with 594 runs and captain Rohit Sharma not far behind on 503.

India also boasts a formidable fast-bowling lineup in Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami.

If successful teams are fortunate as well as good, then India certainly had a lucky break when an injury to all-rounder Hardik Pandya paved the way for Shami’s return, with the experienced seamer having since taken 16 wickets in five matches at a stunningly low average of under 10.

New Zealand Data

Williamson, who returned from knee surgery for the World Cup and recovered from a fractured finger during it, is expecting a tough test.

“We know it’s going to be a really tough challenge. They’re a side that’s been playing extremely well, but we also know come finals time everything starts again, and it’s all about the day,” Williamson told reporters in his pre-match press conference on Tuesday.

New Zealand’s proven pace trio of Trent Boult, Tim Southee and Lockie Ferguson are capable of succeeding against even the strongest batting lineup, with miserly left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner an often under-rated threat.

Runners-up at the last two World Cups, New Zealand also boast a break-out rising star in Rachin Ravindra, with the 23-year-old left-hander having already scored 565 runs.

The son of Indian-born parents, Ravindra is also the first New Zealander to compile three hundreds at a single World Cup, earning rich praise from his captain.

“It’s not just the volume of runs that he’s achieved so far, but how he’s been scoring them and how it’s been geared towards trying to move the team forward,” Williamson said.

South Africa vs Australia Preview

You got this Aussie will be what I yell the rest of the day.

If India makes the final, Australia has the best chance of beating them.

But, South Africa can not be mistaken at all. They went 7-2 with their two losses being India (great team) and Netherlands (bad team, sorry Danish folks).

Here’s something to note. There could be rain on the day of the semi-finals between Aussie and South Africa.

Don’t have many points about this game, but here’s some history…

Cricket World Cup. The semifinals. Australia. They are words to send chills through all followers of the South African team. Sure, it was 24 years ago and these are two very different sides, but memories of the epic 1999 semifinal match between the two countries in Birmingham, England, have come flooding back. Needing just one run off the final four balls of the match, South Africa’s last-wicket pairing of Lance Klusener and Allan Donald lost their heads. Off the first of those balls, Donald almost got himself run out as he wandered out of his crease at the non-striker’s end. Then, off the next ball, Klusener hit an ugly shot past the bowler, Damien Fleming, and went for a single despite the ball going straight to a fielder. Donald, perhaps spooked by what had happened 30 seconds earlier, didn’t reciprocate, somehow dropped his bat, then belatedly began running toward the other end even though Australia had already whipped off the bails and advanced by virtue of a tie. The South Africans already had a reputation of being chokers. This only enhanced it. They’ve lost all four of their World Cup semifinal matches, with all the eliminations having an element of chaos about them. Can it be fifth time lucky?

Midnight Edition

Good luck to all of you staying up and watching the semis that’s happening in India. I would do that to, but sleep is important to me and so that’s why I won’t have the latest updated news, but I have cricket news from 12:00 A.M. ET, so that’s all you get. We’ll have a special edition tomorrow reviewing the India game, and we will talk about the Aussie game on my podcast, so if you have any questions about both teams, feel free to ask me. Alright, see y’all tomorrow, on the best and most in-depth newsletter of cricket, All Around Cricket!