India certainly stormed into the finals. They didn't loose even one match in the league stage and defeated New Zealand in the semi finals to enter the finals. It's even more painful to note that, Indian team defeated Australia in the league match, that too in a very convincing manner. After the match with Australia, many of the Indian batters and bowlers performed exceptionally well, scoring centuries and 5 wicket hauls. Fielding and catching was also satisfactory though not extraordinary. The team gave the entire Indian population sky high hopes. Also, the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat had 130,000 capacity and was ready for the big event.
Australia wins the toss and sends India for batting. So far so good. India looses opener Shubhman Gill for 4 runs. That was also manageable and can happen in any game. Rohith Sharma, Captain continues his great touch and punishes the bowlers scoring more than run a ball. This gives us hope. Incoming batsman, Virat Kohli is also in good form and scores two or three boundaries. So far, so good.
Now the things started turning around in favour of the Australians. Instead of playing a responsible innings, captain plays an irresponsible shot and gets out. Rohith Sharma had already scored scored 10 runs in the over including a 6 and a 4. However, his carelessness becomes the turning point of the match. India scores a disappointing 240 runs in the 50 overs. From here onwards, India accepted the inevitable and body language became weak and eventually Australia received their sixth world cup from the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The commitment of the Australians on the field was something really appreciable. The turning point of the match, where Head runs backwards to take an astonishing catch reminds us of the climax scene in IQBAL movie where a well thought out plan has been executed. Also, 37 year old, David Warner shows his on field commitment by diving and stopping a certain boundary. This is an age old strategy by the Australians. They will dry up the boundaries and Indians will start getting out one by one. The same was successfully implemented against Sachin and Sehwag by McGrath, Gillespie and Brett Lee in earlier World Cups. History repeats. Compared to Australian on field commitment, fielding performance of the Indian team was lacklustre. They didn't dive even once to stop boundaries unlike the Australians who dried up the boundaries for Indian batsman. Boundary was not scored for 10 long overs when Kohli and Rahul were batting.
May be, we can console ourselves telling that, this is only a game and winning and loosing is a part of it. But the most important take away is that, Australians executed a strategy, which has been time tested.
It's here we miss our dear Captain Cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for whom ICC cup victory was the ultimate objective, rather than personal milestones and rash shots. In the 2011 world cup, he motivated the entire team to achieve this objective. Personally, he also ensured that, he scored the winning runs without getting out to careless shots. When will India get such a captain once again?? Only then, can we hope to lift the World Cup again, if at all the 50 over match exists till then. The fate of our Indian Prime Minister was even worse. In his home country, In a stadium named after him, In a tournament where the Indian team didn't loose even a single match till the final, he had to hand over the cup to a different nation with a wry smile.
This team was not able to fulfil the hopes and aspiration of an entire nation due to carelessness and lack of commitment. The next generation will continue to have only Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni to get inspired. Rohith Sharma 36 years and Virat Kohli 35 years should immediately retire from all forms of the game owning up moral responsibility rather than waiting to achieve personal records and milestones. As a team, they didn't lift the ICC World Cup 2023 trophy missing it between the lip and the saucer.
Miss you badly Captain Cool!!!!
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