Pakistan, India, and the neutral cricket world are just one game away from being treated to the match of a lifetime.
The only problem is England stands in the way.
On Thursday night, India and England face off at the Adelaide Oval (7pm AEDT) for the right to play Pakistan in Sunday’s T20 World Cup final.
Should India win, it will mean a match between two bitter rivals that will be watched by over a billion people.
It’s crunch time at the T20 World Cup and you can catch every match live and ad-free in play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
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The two cricket-mad nations, who share a combined population of about 1.7 billion, have only played one World Cup final against each other; the first T20 World Cup in 2007.
Another meeting in a final is a mouth-watering showdown the vast majority of the cricket world wants to see but England will have other ideas.
“Well, we certainly don’t want to see an India-Pakistan final, so we’ll be trying all we can do to make sure that doesn’t happen,” England captain Jos Buttler said.
England does head into the clash with two injury concerns.
England will make last-minute fitness calls on Dawid Malan and Mark Wood as they look to spoil the party.
Wood has bowled the fastest ball of the tournament at 154.74kph.
“We will see how they pull up. We are trying to give them as long as possible,” Buttler said on Wednesday.
“Dawid was out the other day with a small niggle, Woody has had a bit of stiffness. We trust the medical team, we trust the two guys as well.”
Malan looks doubtful after he injured his groin in England’s final Super 12 match against Sri Lanka and could be replaced by Phil Salt.
Meanwhile, ESPNCricinfo reports that Chris Jordan is set to replace Wood having hardly bowled in both of England’s training sessions.
The Cricketer also reports that Wood hasn’t been passed fit.
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HOW TO WATCH
It’s crunch time at the T20 World Cup and you can catch every match live and ad-free in play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
TEAMS
India XI (possible): Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik/Rishabh Pant (wk), Axar Patel, R Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh
England XI (possible): Jos Buttler (c & wk), Alex Hales, Dawid Malan/Phil Salt, Ben Stokes, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Chris Woakes, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid
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