South Africa’s batting was rocked by Josh Hazlewood and fellow new ball bowler Mitchell Starc, who sought to replicate their magic against India in the final in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
As Australia prepares for the World Cup final against India, a team he sees as having “no real weaknesses,” Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood claims he noticed a “few cracks” while unsettling their top-order in their tournament opener. Australia, who lost that game by six wickets in Chennai after reducing India to 3/2 in the second over, set up a big-ticket title duel with a tense three-wicket win over South Africa here on Thursday.
During the tournament’s build-up, the two nations played a three-match ODI series, which India won 2-1.
“We got one in the series, lost it 2-1, but we’ve played them a lot.” We know them inside and out, and they know us.
“They’re a quality team, they’ve been on a march the whole tournament, no real weaknesses in their team, so, yeah, look forward to playing them on Sunday,” Hazlewood said of India following their victory over South Africa.
The bowler went on to say, “I guess we saw a few cracks when we played them in Chennai chasing a small target, we were lucky enough to get a couple early.” In the first game of the tournament, India bowled out Australia for 199.
It will be a rematch of the 2003 World Cup final, which Australia won by a landslide.
Hazlewood and Starc used early movement and bounce with the new ball to leave South Africa reeling at 24/4 after 13 overs, laying the groundwork for their victory.
“I believe there was enough on the wicket.” We seemed to get a wicket every time they went to play a shot. “They had to knuckle down and try to figure it out,” Hazlewood told reporters.
“Yeah, Starc and I have bowled together for a long time, we know each other’s games, and we both bowl well on the same night, which is nice.”
Starc was praised by Hazlewood for keeping things simple versus South Africa.
The left-arm fast returned with superb figures of 10-1-34-3, while Hazlewood took 2/12 with three maidens from his eight overs.
“You also don’t try to chase it too hard.” You know there’s enough there; you just have to get the ball in the correct place, which is often easier said than done.”Keep it simple, Starc… don’t over-attack. We know they have six front-line batsmen, and Marco (Jansen) had a fantastic tournament at seven, so if we can make early inroads, we know they’re geared up for the back end as well.
“So early wickets just put them on the back foot, and we’re lucky enough to do that tonight (Thursday),” the batsman
