ODI World Cup digest: Formidable India surge into semi-finals; huge day looms in Lucknow

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Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah razed Sri Lanka for 55 at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium, sealing India's seventh successive win of the World Cup and their spot in the semi-finals.

India's fast-bowling trio was so sensational with the new ball that the scores of Sri Lanka's top five read like a line of binary code: 0, 0, 1, 0, 1. When Shami also had Nos. 7 and 8 for ducks with the score on 29, Sri Lanka were in serious danger of folding for the lowest total in ODI cricket. They were eventually bundled out in 19.4 overs as India completed the fourth-biggest win in the format, and Shami's 5 for 18 made him India's highest wicket-taker in World Cups. It was the third time that India had dismissed Sri Lanka for less than 100 in ODIs in 2023, and their second 300-plus-run victory against them this year.

Sri Lanka are not facing a normal attack. At the first possible instance, Jasprit Bumrah summons magic from an even higher realm. He comes from wide of the crease, angles it towards leg, has it dance off the seam, hits Pathum Nissanka in front of the stumps. How do you play this? How do you prepare for it?

Mohammed Siraj, with his first delivery, also flirting with the supernatural, bowling from tight into the stumps, angling it seemingly across the left-handed Dimuth Karunaratne. It keeps going that way for most its trajectory before curving back, suddenly and emphatically. Karunaratne is in such a tangle, he times the pants out of his own boot instead of the ball, gets off balance, is hit in front of middle stump.

England - check, Pakistan - check, Sri Lanka - check, Netherlands - next?

Coming into this tournament, Afghanistan had just one win - in 2015 - to show for their previous two World Cup campaigns. Now, they have beaten three previous World Cup winners in this edition alone, and are gunning for two crucial points against Netherlands to turn up the heat in the race for the semi-finals.

Lucknow was Afghanistan's adopted home turf back in 2019, when they faced West Indies in one Test, three T20Is and three ODIs. While they did not have much success in the ODIs back then, the familiarity with the venue could give them an edge in this contest.

Afghanistan (possible) 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz, 2 Ibrahim Zadran, 3 Rahmat Shah, 4 Hashmatullah Shahidi (capt), 5 Azmatullah Omarzai, 6 Ikram Alikhil (wk), 7 Mohammad Nabi, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 10 Naveen-ul-Haq/Noor Ahmad, 11 Fazalhaq Farooqi

Netherlands (possible) 1 Max O'Dowd, 2 Vikramjit Singh, 3 Wesley Barresi, 4 Colin Ackermann, 5 Scott Edwards (capt & wk), 6 Bas de Leede, 7 Sybrand Engelbrecht, 8 Logan van Beek, 9 Shariz Ahmad, 10 Aryan Dutt, 11 Paul van Meekeren

Cricket is not football, and the existence of substitutions clearly demands a bigger squad in one than the other. But with several teams in India experiencing an availability crisis - Australia are picking from a squad of 13 against England on Saturday - it is time for the ICC to discuss the 15-man limit on squads at world events.

The issue was not raised internally at the ICC in the build-up to the World Cup but teams can propose a change via the men's cricket committee - which incidentally, Gary Stead, New Zealand's coach, sits on - or the chief executives' committee. It is time they do so, because the current level is needlessly strict.