India has been a gigantic force like a Black Hole, decimating everyone comes close to them in CWC 2023. This World Cup has been a big defining moment where the country has come up as a dominant force. It is almost like Australia playing in 2003 and 2007 CWCs. Many people wanted India to play like this for a long long time.
Unlike in 2019, the team is looking to close all the gaps and win without a set pattern. If openers fail, middle-order is looking to accept the responsibility. If batters do an average job, bowlers are coming up with great goods. And from past two matches, whole team is coming together like an unstoppable force.
They won the toss and elected to bat first against South Africa. SA lost to Netherlands and almost lost to Pakistan while chasing. India wanted to put them under pressure for chasing a big score. Rohit Sharma got a huge start after Marco Jansen gave away 17 runs in his first over. After scoring 40 from 24, he got out trying to force more. Later, Shubman Gill got bamboozled by Keshav Maharaj ball.
Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer took the onus on themselves and put on 134 run partnership. Shreyas Iyer got out looking to score even faster after scoring 77. Virat carried on to score his 49th ton for India in ODIs. He equalled the record by Sachin Tendulkar in ODIs. As Suryakumar Yadav(22) and Ravindra Jadeja(29) contributed, they scored 326/5 in 50 overs.
In chase, South Africa could not even put bat to ball against Indian bowlers. Ravindra Jadeja took 5 wickets for 33 runs. Mohammed Shami(2/18), Kuldeep Yadav(2/7) and Mohammed Siraj(1/11) took wickets to dismiss SA for 83. India won the match by 243 runs and will end up as No.1 just like 2019 CWC. Hope this time, they will go beyond Semi-Final and win the cup, keeping up to the current form.