"History and the record books will show that the Proteas only need to ensure they bat second to emerge victorious," says Graeme Smith, former South African captain.
I will start this column by stating the facts: South Africa has never lost to India in an ICC Cricket World Cup fixture. I will also qualify that statement by adding these two teams have only played each other three times in ICC’s pinnacle tournament and all three games have been extremely tight with South Africa chasing down the target with only a few balls to spare on each occasion.
These two teams seem to have a knack of producing memorable games when they meet in ICC Cricket World Cups. Adelaide (1992), Hove (1999) and Nagpur (2011) were all defining games within the context of the respective ICC Cricket World Cups and I don’t foresee Melbourne 2015 being any different.
The MCG is a cauldron of 97,000 passionate cricket fans. The atmosphere and sheer size of the ground can make it an overwhelming prospect. The added element of an ICC Cricket World Cup fixture will only increase the tension and pre-match nerves, hence, I believe that being able to settle down and finding a rhythm quickly will go a long way to deciding the outcome of the game.
There have been three One-Day Internationals played at the MCG, thus far in the 2014 / 2015 season and all have been fairly high-scoring affairs. I believe this trend will continue on Sunday.
Since 2013, India has won more One-Day Internationals when chasing than any other team, hence it will back itself to chase down anything. Its talismans, MS Dhoni and Virat Kholi, will instil this belief in it. Within its top-order constituents of Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Vitrat Kohli, India has three of the most prolific batsmen in One-Day Internationals over the past couple of years.
