IND vs AUS LIVE Score, Champions Trophy Semi Final: Mohammed Shami drops Travis Head first ball of the match

IND vs AUS LIVE Score, Champions Trophy 2025 Semi-Final: Shami dropped Head off the first legal delivery of the match

IND vs AUS LIVE Score, Champions Trophy 2025 Semi-Final: After starting off with a wide, India had the chance to send Travis Head back for a duck, but Mohammed Shami dropped a tough caught and bowled opportunity to give India’s nemesis and the Aussies batter an early lifeline. Rohit Sharma lost yet another toss – India’s 14th in a row, but Australia captain Steve Smith called it right and opted to bat. Varun Chakaravarthy retained his place in the Playing XI as India went in with an unchanged side. Two changes for Australia though, with Cooper Connolly replacing the injured Matthew Short and Jason Sangha comes in for Spencer Johnson.…Read More

There is always an aura of invincibility about Australia but, quite astonishingly, that seemed to fade a bit for Indian fans in particular between, say, 2016 and 2021. In this period, India won both the matches they played against Australia in ICC tournaments – in the 2016 T20 World Cup, and the 2019 World Cup, and went on a run of four consecutive series wins in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, including two Down Under itself.

It is, hence, understandable if the younger crop of Indian fans, who don’t have very vivid memories older than 2016, are slightly shocked by how Australia have haunted and hounded India in recent years. For older fans, though, this is only a return to normalcy. A match against Australia has historically been a death knell for India, particularly in the big tournaments. Regardless of how good you are, the Aussies are just better than you, as Sourav Ganguly’s side found out in the 2003 World Cup.

India’s Playing XI vs Australia:

Openers: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill

Top and middle order: Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (Wicketkeeper)

All-rounders: Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja

Bowlers: Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy

Australia’s Playing XI vs India:

Openers: Cooper Connolly, Travis Head,

Top and middle order: Steven Smith(c), Marnus Labuschagne, Josh Inglis(w), Alex Carey,

All-Rounder: Glenn Maxwell

Bowlers: Ben Dwarshuis, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Tanveer Sangha

India vs Australia: Head-to-Head in ODIs

Matches Played: 151

Australia Won: 84

India won: 57

Tie/NR: 10

India’s many failures against Australia since 2021

In the years after the pandemic, Australia crashed India’s World Cup festival in 2023 quite extraordinarily in Ahmedabad. Before that, they dealt India their second consecutive defeat in the World Test Championship final. They may have lost their fourth consecutive Test series to India in this period but that was a distant memory when Rohit Sharma’s men were being dismantled in Australia in late 2024 and early 2025, thus resulting in them missing out on the WTC final for the first time.

The Travis Head factor

Australia may be playing with a depleted bowling attack in the 2025 Champions Trophy but their batting lineup doesn’t have too many missing stars. Which means, India have to deal with Travis Head once again. Australia’s destroyer-in-chief has taken a special liking to India in recent years, and in ODIs, he averages 43.12 against them in nine matches. He has scored just one century but that was in that 2023 World Cup final which powered Australia to victory.

Head fell for just six runs against England but was looking in very good touch against Afghanistan before rain in Lahore won the day. He was unbeaten on 59 in 40 balls with Australia chasing a target of 274.

Therein lies a factor that might work in India’s favour. Australia have managed to play just one completed match all tournament – the run feast in Lahore against England which they won by five wickets. No one really even took the field for their second match against South Africa in Rawalpindi which was completely washed out and their batters couldn’t really do much in the third game against Afghanistan either, with just under 13 overs being bowled in their innings.

India’s chances in Dubai

India, however, would be best served not to consider anything as an advantage going into this game due their recent trials and tribulations against the Aussies. Captain Rohit Sharma seems to be doing just that. He even denied that India have any advantage at all with regards to venue, despite being the only side that haven’t travelled between cities at all in this tournament while all teams who faced them have needed to travel between two different countries and had to hop between cities in Pakistan before and after that.

It is quite likely that India will go in with same eleven that beat New Zealand quite soundly in their last group match, unless the pitch throws a curveball. Leaving out Varun Chakravarthy is now impossible after his fifer in the last match that won him the player of the match. It was his contribution, and that of the rest of the spinners, that really set the game up for India whose batters themselves had a tough time in the game.

At the end of it all, though, India would be hoping that Rohit himself strikes the jackpot this time. His efforts to go as big as possible early on has clipped his contributions with the bat thus far in the tournament and it was his 92 off 41 balls that made the difference in India’s victory over Australia in the 2024 T20 World Cup – a rare win for them in this fixture as part of a big tournament in the years since the pandemic. The ideal scenario for India would be their top three of Rohit, Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli all firing to the best that they can, regardless of whether they are batting first or chasing.