A third straight win for India would not only see them top the group and qualify for the semi-finals, but would also pose a major threat to Australia’s chances of qualifying after their surprising defeat to Afghanistan in St Vincent on Saturday night.
Following their defeat against Afghanistan, Australia are not taking their destiny into their own hands and will be keen to follow Rashid Khan’s side’s final match against Bangladesh.
India, who suffered a heartbreaking defeat to Australia in a major ICC tournament, will be hoping for an early exit from their formidable rivals.
India do not need to do much as they fine-tune their match for the knockout stages as consecutive wins against Afghanistan and Bangladesh have checked all the boxes.
Both Rohit and Virat Kohli played productive innings against Afghanistan while Shivam Dube, who was not up to the task, responded to criticism with some crucial knocks.
Number three Rishabh Pant has often been given out through reverse hits and will be looking to rectify that.
India’s biggest positive in this tournament has been the all-round performance of Hardik Pandya, who has now also excelled with the bat to complement his sharp delivery.
Kuldeep Yadav will not take much time to make a match-winning contribution and is expected to pick up wickets in the middle overs.
With the team playing three Super 8 matches and the same number of travel days in between, management will be tempted to rotate players, but this is unlikely.
India, who arrived in St Lucia on Saturday night, opted not to hold a pre-match training session against Australia given the hectic travel schedule.
This will be the second day game at the Darren Sammy Cricket Stadium, where high scoring day-night games have been produced, although England failed to chase 164 in a day game against South Africa in their last match at this venue.
This is the best place for batting in the tournament, but the sun beating down on the pitch all day is likely to favor pitchers with slower ball speeds.
Australia, meanwhile, have plenty to worry about going into the match, having had a poor batting performance against Afghanistan and Mitchell Marsh’s men having a rare forgettable night on the field.
Marsh has scored just 88 runs at batting average of 111 in six matches and will need to lead from the front against India.
Glenn Maxwell, bowling on the off side, will need to check his economy rate of 8.58 runs per over.
As for the opposition, it will be interesting to see how Kohli fare against leg-spinner Adam Zampa, who has beaten the Indian superstar on a number of occasions.
Australia deployed Ashton Agar as an additional spinner in place of Mitchell Starc against Afghanistan but that could change for the India game.