How much of an outlier was India's win over Australia in the 2025 World Cup?

India chased a world record total of 338 to sprint past Australia in the semifinals of the 2025 World Cup. Out of 157 chases, 92 resulted in victories for India.

So this should have been a cake walk for India, right?

Wrong!

Why? Let's take a look at India's successful chases over the last 15 years.

Trend line representing India top 10 successful chases before the semifinal win

Trend line representing India's top 10 successful chases before the semifinal win

Until the victory in the semifinals, India's highest ever successful chase was 264 against Australia in 2021. This was also the first ever time that India had chased a total of over 250 against any opposition

It remained the only victorious chase over 250 against Australia until the semifinal win

Out of 92 victories for India batting second, only 20 (~22%) involved chasing a score of 200 or more
Including the semifinal win, India had chased a score over 250 only 4 times in its entire history
Until the 2017 World Cup final, India had chased a score of over 230 only once

Hence this win over Australia was not only a massive upset but also a gigantic outlier as illustrated on the above graph.

Did Australia read too much into these stats and take it easy once a large score was on the cards?

I don't know for sure but once they were ahead they did surrender some of their advantage with some pretty ordinary batting. Here are some examples:

Phoebe Litchfield's switch hit which resulted in her stumps getting rattled thereby offering respite to the Indian bowlers who were desperately searching for answers to stem the momentum AND
Ashleigh Gardner's nonchalant runout while she was putting Indian bowlers to sword. That dismissal was central to Australia slowing down in the death overs

Bottomline, India punched way above their weight. A combination of home conditions plus experience of chasing over 400 against the same opponent must have helped. Whatever might be the case, this win was one for the ages.

Until Next Time,

Your sports raconteur.

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