Hyderabad: The Indian team started their Cricket World Cup campaign with a hard-fought win over Australia by six wickets on Sunday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
- Wicket-keeper batter KL Rahul remained unbeaten on 97 and became the only second Indian batter to remain unbeaten in the 90s in the ODI Cricket World Cup. The first batter was former skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who remained unbeaten on 91 against Sri Lanka during the 2011 World Cup final in Mumbai. Interestingly, both the batters remained unbeaten while chasing and both finished the game by smashing a six.
- This was also the first instance when three of the top four batters were dismissed on zero. Openers Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer went back to the pavilion without scoring a run.
- Aggressive Australian opener David Warner became the fastest to complete 1000 runs in the history of the World Cup. He took 19 innings to achieve the feat.
- Virat Kohli and KL Rahul conjured a 165-run stand for the fourth wicket, which was the second-highest for any wicket against Australia in World Cups.
- Australia lost their opening World Cup match for the first time after the 1999 World Cup.
- India has reached the semi-final of the World Cup every time, they have won the first match of the World Cup.
- KL Rahul's unbeaten 97 is the second-highest score by an Indian wicket-keeper in the World Cup. The record for the highest score by an Indian stumper is held by current head coach Rahul Dravid when he smashed 145 against Sri Lanka in the 1999 edition.
- KL Rahul's unbeaten 97 is the third-highest score by an Indian batter against Australia in the ODI World Cup. The highest score is by opener Shikhar Dhawan at the Oval in the 2019 edition while Ajay Jadeja's unbeaten 100 at the same venue in the 1999 edition is at the second place.
- Virat Kohli now has the most runs for India in ICC limited-over tournaments and he surpassed the great Sachin Tendulkar. Tendulkar had 2,719 runs. Skipper Rohit Sharma is third on the list, while former India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh and former India skipper Sourav Ganguly are in the fourth and fifth spot.
