Key posts
England win toss, will bowl first
Jos Buttler has won the toss for England.
He’s decided England will bowl first, and send India into bat.
“Obviously the dimensions here are a little different, so we have to adapt quickly,” Buttler said.
England have made two changes, bringing in Phil Salt and Chris Jordan for Dawid Malan and Mark Wood.
India is unchanged, meaning Dinesh Karthik misses out for Rishabh Pant, who holds his spot.
England’s results so far
Oct 22: Afghanistan 112 def by England 5/113
Oct 26: Ireland 157 d England 5/105
Oct 28: Australia v England abandoned
Nov 1: England 6/179 d New Zealand 6/159
Nov 5: Sri Lanka 8/141 def by England 6/144
Summary: Four matches for three wins and a loss to Ireland, and their match-up against Australia was abandoned. The win over New Zealand was strong, however, and they did what they needed to do against Afghanistan and Sri Lanka to finish second in group A to deny Australia a top-two finish on net run rate. Their batting hasn’t been a strength this tournament, but their bowling certainly has, led by Sam Curran, who has 10 wickets at 9.4 this tournament.
Sam Curran has led England’s bowling attack this tournament.Credit:Getty Images
India’s results so far
Oct 23: Pakistan 8/159 def by India 6/160
Oct 27: India 2/179 d Netherlands 9/123
Oct 30: India 9/133 def by South Africa 5/137
Nov 2: India 6/184 d Bangladesh 6/145
Nov 6: India 5/185 d Zimbabwe 115
Summary: Five matches equated to four wins and a loss for India in the group stage, to finish on top of group B. The win over Pakistan was the highlight, but they lost to South Africa and beat minnows Netherlands, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Only New Zealand has produced a better net run rate this tournament, but that meant little last night when the Kiwis were bundled out by Pakistan. Virat Kohli has been instrumental for India, scoring 246 runs at an average of 123 through five matches, including a high score of 82 not out.
Virat Kohli has been dominant so far in this tournament.Credit:Getty
India fans descend on Adelaide Oval
Homegrown Pakistan enter T20 cricket’s premier league
By Malcolm Knox
It’s probably heresy to even think it, but could the Pakistan Super League, a six-year-old six-team domestic competition, be the world’s strongest Twenty20 nursery?
Orthodox logic says no. Of course the Indian Premier League, the all-star pageant that claims to be cricket’s NBA, NFL and Champions League rolled in together, has raised the income of every participant and the standard of the 20-over format as a whole.
Innovation in cricket has been turbocharged by the IPL, where the best of the best are challenged to produce their best, under pressure, in an annual whirlwind of noise, music and dollars. If you’re not in the IPL, as Paul Keating might say, you’re camping out.
‘Un-Australian’? The values today’s cricketers are missing
By Peter FitzSimons
Take it away, Michael Clarke, giving your view on the Australian cricket team putting in such a poor performance in the T20 World Cup, knocked out in the group stage or somesuch, I think?
“I think Australians in general,” he said, “on the biggest stage under the most amount of pressure, always put it on the line and have a crack. We’re not scared to lose. Yet we picked an aggressive 11 in this World Cup squad yet played so defensively. Very un-Australian.”
My eyes, as yours, are drawn to that final phrase, “Very un-Australian”.
Why you haven’t seen the T20 World Cup’s biggest moments on Twitter
By Daniel Brettig
Early in the 2019 one-day international World Cup, Ben Stokes took a stupendous outfield catch against South Africa at The Oval. The resulting clip on the International Cricket Council’s Twitter account has fetched more than 1 million views.
Yet in Australia during this Twenty20 tournament, no such moments have been posted to the same social media platform at all: not Virat Kohli’s sixes to beat Pakistan, not Josh Little’s hat-trick for Ireland, not even Suryakumar Yadav’s more otherworldly shots.
Instead, they have all been posted to either Instagram or Facebook, as part of a deal the ICC signed with Meta prior to the 2021 T20 World Cup in the UAE. That’s because in terms of video engagement, but also the sizes of audiences for those two platforms in south Asia in particular, there is simply no comparison with Twitter.
SKY’s the limit for India in England showdown
By Daniel Brettig
Ben Stokes says India’s Twenty20 supernova Suryakumar Yadav “plays some shots where you’re just sort of scratching your head sometimes”. Shane Watson reckons Yadav makes his extravagant strokeplay look “low-risk, even though what he does is high risk”.
And England’s captain Jos Buttler has arguably the toughest task in cricket right now: finding a way to limit Yadav’s output to prevent him from launching India to victory in the T20 World Cup semi-final at Adelaide Oval on Thursday.
Suryakumar Yadav in blistering form for India.Credit:Getty Images
At 32, Yadav – affectionately known as ‘SKY’, an abbreviation of his long name – has burst onto the international scene in the manner of an accelerated Mike Hussey, knowing his game intimately and slotting into India’s short-form team as though he was always destined to be there.
Good evening!
By Damien Ractliffe
Welcome to tonight’s live blog of the semi-final between India v England.
Damien Ractliffe from The Age, here to take you through tonight’s match, which is sure to be an epic.
The match kicks off at 6.30pm local time, which is 7pm AEST.
