3) Warner-Finch vs Umesh-Shami
It's the battle between Aussie openers and Indian opening bowlers.
The Aussie openers have been quiet except a couple of big scores. David Warner came up with a swashbuckling 178 against Afghanistan in a one-sided game but scored just 88 in rest of five games.
Aaron Finch too started with a brilliant 135 against England in the WC opener but only managed to score 64 in other 5 games.
On the other hand, Shami and Umesh have been in sublime form with 17 and 14 wickets respectively. Apart from Ireland, no opponent has been able to set up even a fifty runs opening stand. The bowling duo will prove to be a handful for the Aussie openers on Thursday.
Also Indian bowlers have been using the short balls very well but many Australians have warned them to bowl the short pitch deliveries at their own risk.
It will be a great opportunity for Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav to build the early pressure on the Australians with these two crucial wickets. While the Australian duo will be expected to raise their game at Sydney as this is also the home ground to Warner.
4) SCG vs the spinners
The Sydney Square has traditionally helped both pacers and spinners but in recent times it is mostly known to be a spin friendly track.
The crowd at SCG will witness the battle between the spinners of both the sides as they are certainly going to be key for the teams to qualify for the final.
On one hand Australia lacks a quality spinner and can only rely on Glenn Maxwell but on the other, India have Ashwin-Jadeja duo which collectively scalped 21 wickets with a much reasonable economy as compared to Maxwell's 6.26.
Maxwell only have 5 wickets in 6 matches while Ashwin and Jadeja have 12 and 9 wickets respectively.
After South Africa vs Sri Lanka clash in quarterfinal at SCG where the protea spinners took 7 wickets including Duminy's hat-trick, it is almost certain that the spinners will play a crucial role in semifinal and the Aussies will be wary of the Indian spinners on a helpful track.
5) Battle of knock-outs
It will be third occasion when the two teams will meet in a knock out match of any World Cup.
The first time they met was way back in 2003 in the final where Australia posted a daunting target of 359 and Team India was bowled out for 225, thus losing the cup by 125 runs.
India avenged the 2003 defeat in the quarterfinal clash in World Cup 2011 and knocked the then defending champions Australia out of the World Cup.
The equation in World Cup knock-outs is 1-1 between both the teams and if India manage to sneak a victory here, they will move a step closer to defend their world title.
With organisers estimating that 70 percent of the tickets have been picked up by Indian fans, Australia would feel as if they were playing an away game on their own soil.
