On World Cup Final vs India, Josh Hazlewood Makes 'Pitch Expectation' Clear

Australia pacer Josh Hazlewood is expecting a good pitch for the Cricket World Cup final against India at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday. Hazlewood played a crucial role in Australia's three-wicket win over South Africa in the semi-finals. He took the wickets of Quinton de Kock and Rassie van der Dussen to help Australia bowl South Africa out for a below-par total of 212, with his team chasing down the total with 16 balls to spare. Citing the example of Australia's match against England at the same venue, Hazlewood is confident that the pitch in Ahmedabad will have a bit of everything for everyone.

"I guess that's the beauty of having so many grounds in one country that - from north to south, east to west - they're all a little bit different. You adapt your bowling, adapt your batting to those conditions and we saw tonight it really spun and for us it nipped around early. We played England at Ahmedabad and the wicket was pretty good without being an absolute flat track, so I expect probably something similar to that," Hazlewood told Cricket.com.au.

Despite suggesting that India have ticked all boxes so far in the tournament, Hazlewood emphasised that his team is more than capable of exploiting the "cracks" just like they did when the two teams met earlier during the tournament.

"I think they're all across the board really. They've got good quicks, good spinners, good batters so they're ticking every box. 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. But there's no real weaknesses as we've seen," he added.

India and Australia had met during the group stage last month, with the hosts registering a comfortable win. But, the Aussies have since produced a remarkable turnaround in form, winning 8 matches on the trot to qualify for the final.

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India Cricket Team Australia Cricket Team Josh Hazlewood World Cup 2023 Cricket