India Champions inflicted a humiliating 86-run defeat on Australia Champions in the second semi-final of the ongoing World Championship of Legends (WCL) 2024 at the County Ground in Northampton on Friday night.
India will now face Pakistan in the final of the tournament which is set to be played on Saturday at Edgbaston Stadium in Birmingham.
India dominated the Aussies in the semi-final, both with the ball and the bat as their all-round performance helped them secure a massive win.
Chasing the massive 255-run target, Australia were never in the game as the Indian bowlers dominated the opponents from the very start.
Australia lost their key batters Shaun Marsh (2), Aaron Finch (16), Ben Dunk (10), Callum Ferguson (23) without contributing valuable runs as the target was too big and required much better innings.
The Indian bowlers continued to trouble the Aussies, who concluded their innings at 168-7 in the allocated overs.
Earlier in the first innings, after being asked to bat first, Robin Uthappa took charge of India’s innings and played an exceptional 35-ball 65-run knock with the help of 10 boundaries.
India’s skipper Yuvraj Singh continued with Uthappa had started and played a quick 59-run innings on just 28 balls before losing his wicket to Peter Siddle.
After Yuvraj was gone, Irfan Pathan and Yousuf Pathan battered the Australian batters. The two brothers combined for a 95-run partnership which helped India post the 255-run target, which turned out to be too big for Australia.
Irfan scored 50 on just 19 balls while Yousuf posted 51 on 23 balls. For Australia, Siddle bagged four wickets while Coulter-Nile and Xavier Doherty managed to get one each.
Playing XIs
Australia: Aaron Finch, Callum Ferguson, Ben Cutting, Daniel Christian, Tim Paine (wk), Ben Dunk, Ben Laughlin, Peter Siddle, Brett Lee (c), Xavier Doherty, Nathan Coulter-Nile
India: Robin Uthappa (wk), Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Yuvraj Singh (c), Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Pawan Negi, Vinay Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Dhawal Kulkarni
