India v Australia from Ahmedabad's Lalit Modi Stadium

Kia ora, good evening and welcome to live coverage of the 2023 Cricket World Cup final, as hosts India meet Australia from Ahmedabad's Lalit Modi Stadium.

After six weeks of what's felt like cricket itself bending over backwards to crown India as the greatest side to ever play the 50-over game, tonight will see if Rohit Sharma's side have what it takes to reach the top of their own mountain.

So far, this tournament has seen India canter into the final, winning 10 games out of 10, and put themselves one win away from a third World Cup title.

In Virat Kohli, India have the tournament's leading scorer and, in Mohammed Shami, they have its leading wicket-taker.

Standing in India's way are an Australian side who, like many before, are peaking at the perfect time.

Led by Pat Cummins, the Aussies lost their first two matches of this year's tournament to India and then South Africa, but as they always seem to do, they got the last laugh against the Proteas and will look to do the same against India tonight.  

With the bat, Travis Head will look to continue strong at the top of the order, while the likes of Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood have a tough job to keep the Indian line-up quiet with the ball.

As far as the pitch goes, tonight's surface will be the same used in the 12th match of the tournament, where India defeated Pakistan by seven wickets.

In that game, Pakistan fell from 155/2 to 191 all out, as five of India's attack snared two wickets apiece, before half-centuries to Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer guided the hosts home with nearly 20 overs to spare.  

Not since 2007 has a side won the Cricket World Cup without hosting it and you'd be hard pressed to bet against that happening over the next eight hours.

TAB odds: India $1.39, Australia $2.90

Teams (predicted):

India: 1-Rohit Sharma (capt), 2-Shubman Gill, 3-Virat Kohli, 4-Shreyas Iyer, 5-KL Rahul (wk), 6-Suryakumar Yadav, 7-Ravindra Jadeja, 8-Mohammed Shami, 9-Kuldeep Yadav, 10-Jasprit Bumrah, 11-Mohammed Siraj

Australia: 1-Travis Head, 2-David Warner, 3-Mitchell Marsh, 4-Steve Smith, 5-Marnus Labuschagne, 6-Glenn Maxwell, 7-Josh Inglis (wk), 8-Mitchell Starc, 9-Pat Cummins, 10-Adam Zampa, 11-Josh Hazlewood

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