Today's India vs Australia ICC World Cup cricket final is set to showcase the best that the sport has to offer. Whatever your preconceptions of cricket – slow, unfathomable, boring – take the time to watch the match at the world's largest stadium, the 132,000-strong Narendra Modi in Gujarat, packed to the rafters with India cricket fans willing their team to victory in their home world cup, and I'll bet you change your mind.
This is one-day, 50-over cricket and it includes aspects often absent in those more condensed versions of the game – Twenty20 and T10, which are often cited as the gateway by which newcomers to the game can be attracted to cricket.
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Twenty20 cricket bestrides the cricketing globe, boldly going where cricket has rarely gone before. But it is the 50-over format which can still provide cricket in a more relevant, yet still accessible, way. It offers an introduction to understanding the purest form of cricket, through a format that can still provide drama, excitement, big-hitting and a result over a reasonably short period of time.
Thursday's South Africa vs Australia semifinal is a perfect example. South Africa’s turn with the bat started against some high-quality, attacking bowling. Australia set an aggressive, close-catching field of two slips and a gully as South Africa’s batsmen were forced to defend against a moving new ball and were quickly reduced to 24-4.
The following middle-order batsmen cautiously, then boldly, rebuilt the innings. That involved a superb counter-attacking century from David Miller, who hit five sixes, in a match which had 13 of them in total. To those watching, this all served up aspects of the variety and intricacies of the glorious game that is cricket.
Watching Sunday’s World Cup final, the casual sports fan will see some of the subtleties and sub-plots of the very best cricket matches. (Some, not all, I admit!)
This may all seem heresy in a cricketing landscape in which the crash, bang, wallop versions of T20 and T10 are en vogue, and the 50-over game is increasingly sidelined and dismissed as out-of-date. Yet I believe that 50-over cricket has never been more of its time.
India have been far and away the best team this World Cup. They have tackled the matches as if they were Test matches on fast forward. The bowlers hunt for wickets. The batsman concentrate on building innings, on making lots of runs rather than quick runs per se. (As most modern batsman score relatively quickly, batsmen know that, if they can stay in, the runs will normally flow.) And it's made for a stunning spectacle.
Virat Kohli is the tournament’s leading scorer, with 711 runs – 117 runs more than anyone else. He has been one of the key planks in India’s progress to the final. But his scoring rate this World Cup is slower than the rate at which England’s most junior middle order batsman, Harry Brook, scores in Test cricket – the format of the game where you'd expect run rates to be at their lowest.
One-day cricket, when played well, is as close or closer to Test cricket as it is to T20 cricket, certainly than T10 or the yet-to-travel outside-England, Hundred. For me, that makes it all the more faithful to the heart of the game while lacking none of the drama. My hope is that the world will remember that as the India vs Australia live stream is played out. And if we're talking about the minds of the cricketing world, there is no bigger fan base than India.
India’s attitude to new formats has mirrored their national team’s success in ICC tournaments – slow to take to any new format. Test cricket was king in the eyes of Indian cricket supporters and indeed players. When India played in the first-ever World Cup match, at Lord’s in 1975, it was only the third one-day international they had played, all of them in England.
In a 60-over match, which the games were in the first three World Cups, Sunil Gavaskar batted throughout the innings for 36 not out. Number five Brijesh Patel scored 16 off 57 balls. India closed on 132-3 after their 60 overs – a measly score by one-day standards.
Then, in 1983, eight years later, Kapil Dev’s India won the World Cup final beating Clive Lloyd’s West Indies, who were going for a hat-trick of titles, and India fell in love with one-day cricket.
Again the Twenty20 game, when that was introduced, did not immediately grab the Indian imagination. Until, that is, India won the first T20 world cup and, again, the country developed an insatiable appetite for T20 cricket. Test matches, once played to full houses in India, are now not. Twenty20 is king.
Could an India win in the World Cup reignite the nation's passion for the 50-over game in cricket’s most populous and important market? It certainly needs it. I would argue it merits it too.
If you're not sure of your best options for getting an India vs Australia live stream, we have all the details on how to watch the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 online from anywhere in the world.
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