The Dream Ends For India

In the 43^rd over the chase, with a large chunk of the 92,453 spectators well on their way out of the stadium premises, Australia’s Travis Head slogged a Mohammed Siraj ball in front of square and the Australian dressing room stood up as one. For, had that ball gone to the boundary, centurion Head – the hero of this day and night – would’ve rightly hit the winning runs against India in the World Cup final. Instead, the ball fell safely into the hands of Shubman Gill at midwicket and Head was out, albeit for a ridiculously good knock and score of 137 runs, which will surely go down as one of the great centuries in a quadrennial final.

With just two runs to win, Head was gone. The dressing room remained standing anyway, giving their man a standing ovation all the way to the boundary. In fact, Marnus Labuschagne, Head’s partner-in-crime for all of their 198-run stand that ended up bailing the Aussies from a spot of bother (47/3 at the fall of the reliable Steve Smith’s wicket), ran all the way across the pitch and past even the wicketkeeper to give Head a big, emotional hug, and returned to the crease with new batsman Glenn Maxwell.

Hence it would be Maxwell, hitter of not only the fastest-ever World Cup century against the Netherlands in Delhi earlier on in the tournament but also the conjurer of the greatest-ever ODI innings ever (an unbeaten 201) against Afghanistan in Mumbai later on in the event that put Australia in the knock-outs in the first place, who would get a chance to well and truly finish things off. He did so from the very first ball he faced, mistiming a pull off Siraj to deep square-leg to hare across for two runs with half-centurion Labuschagne and their teammates, waiting below the dressing room stairs by this point, rushed on to the ground in absolute ecstasy.

For the Indians on the field, it was pure agony. Wicketkeeper KL Rahul collapsed on to his padded knees and buried his face in his gloves, while Siraj would soon be weeping into his sleeves. The others were a little more kept together, but it took just one look of Virat Kohli’s face, scorer of 765 runs in this campaign, to know that he was desperately disappointed. The dream of winning that hallowed trophy one last time before they retire had well and truly ended for the likes of Kohli and his captain, Rohit Sharma. And what perhaps made it worse for them was the fact that they entered this final as the certain favourites, having not eked past but rather decimated every other side to have played this tournament. They were 10 for 10 coming into the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday, but the 11^th eluded them in the eleventh hour unfortunately.

“We were not good enough today, we tried everything we could from our side,” said an understandably dejected Sharma at the presentation ceremony. After the loss, he was the first to shake hands with the opposition and also the first to leave the ground, perhaps to compose himself. Still barely in control of the glum look that was tearing across his face, he added: “It wasn’t supposed to be.”

Perhaps it wasn’t. So, where did the wheels come off for the most indomitable team of the tournament? Well, the answer is a simple one. Everything that could go wrong for India – everything that hadn’t gone wrong for them for ten consecutive games right through the group stages and also the semifinal – did. Everything, literally. On a slow wicket where the ball was stopping on the batters, India’s venerated top-order failed, exposing a middle and lower middle-order that hadn’t been tested yet; that middle-order failed as well (especially Suryakumar Yadav, whose timing was off thanks to the slowness of the wicket), leaving India’s long tail to bat out nearly the entirety of the death overs; therefore, a team so dependent on big hits were dried of boundaries, to the point where India scored a total of three fours after the 10^th over of the innings. Imagine that! Three boundaries in 40 overs.

That was just the first innings, for things continued to go belly up during India’s bowling innings too. For one, captain Sharma, out of sheer desperation, gave the new ball to Shami, which the first-change bowler hadn’t once bowled with all tournament long and his control of the shiny new leather wasn’t as good as his authority over the ageing ball; this had a domino effect on the rest of the bowling line-up – the spinners as well as the otherwise regular new-ball bowler, Siraj. By the time Siraj was introduced into the attack, in the 17^th over and well after the two spinners had tried their luck, he found no purchase off a flattening pitch. Then, keeper Rahul, so brilliant behind the wickets all tournament long perhaps got the big-stage yips and conceded a few byes, unheard of for him all tournament long.

But the biggest thing that could go wrong for India on Sunday had taken place long before Sunday. And what was that? Again, simple: it was Australia that India were playing in the final and Australia simply do not mess up on this stage. No team is more clinical under the biggest of pumps, World Cup finals, having been here and done this repeatedly since the advent of this format – having won five out of the seven finales they had featured in until Saturday. On Sunday, they made it six out of eight. Six World Cup trophies, four more than the next best (two, by India and West Indies), so, imagine that too!

To be fair to the Indians, Australia and their captain Pat Cummins, now a World Cup winning-leader, didn’t put a foot wrong from the very beginning. When Cummins won the toss and chose to put India in to bat, eyebrows went up all over the cricket-watching world, for, on the biggest stage, runs on the board is always the way ahead (incidentally, Sourav Ganguly put Australia in to bat back in the 2003 final and India lost rather badly). But Cummins knew exactly what he was doing on a very slow and low wicket, and some would argue that this was India’s doing anyway.

It was noticed on the day before the game that the grounds staff (on the orders of India’s management) had watered only the middle of the pitch and not its sides to encourage spin. It certainly did, with wide and dry rough patches around the bat on both sides, but the Aussies were the only side to eventually exploit it. Despite Shubman Gill falling early to a sizzling Mitchell Starc, fellow opener Sharma committed to his style of going hard early. It came off for a bit, with India scoring 80 runs in the first powerplay; Sharma accounting for most of those with 47 runs off 31 balls, when the others were struggling to score singles. But once he was out to a skier – caught brilliantly by who else but a tumbling Head – India would struggle. Now, 76/1 fast became 81/3, with the fall of Shreyas Iyer as well, who had come into this match on the back of two consecutive hundreds.

It was then up to Rahul and Kohli to save India against Australia, the same two men who did just that at the very beginning of the tournament against the same side when they found themselves at 2/3 in a tricky chase in Chennai. But lightning seldom strikes twice and although both hit watchful half-centuries, they didn’t score a single boundary between them from the 10^th over of the innings onwards. Even a score of 240 runs, that India eventually posted, seemed a decent one given the circumstances.

The pitch was acting up but the fear was that the late onset of dew in Ahmedabad would affect India’s bowlers in the second half of the game. The dew stayed away, so the opening bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Shami made merry initially with what is now a regular sight of ball beating bat and sometimes ball edging the bat. Opener David Warner, one-drop Mitchell Marsh and Australia’s rock in such situations, Steve Smith, couldn’t take the heat. But Head, Australia’s other opener, and Labuschagne (who wasn’t sure if he was going to play today in the first place) could. They were circumspect for a long while, seeing away India’s threatening pacers by the 10^th over and were watchful against the spinners as well, until Head cleared his front foot in Kuldeep Yadav’s third over and slog swept him for a six. The proverbial floodgates now opened.

Righty Labuschagne would play the anchor role, while lefty Head started throwing his lovely hands around and always found a way to connect from the middle of his bat. He cut Siraj for a four with a deft late touch to the boundary just before drinks and after it, it was the Travis Head show as he, in one Bumrah, over cracked the fast bowler for three boundaries – all on his favoured leg side. The fans began to trickle out of this gigantic stadium, but many were still around to applaud his century, which he celebrated by moving his gloved fingers like a talking mouth. His bat was now doing the talking and when it did from there on, all of India fell silent to grudgingly listen.

ICC MEN’S CRICKET WORLD CUPIndia-AustraliaMohammed SirajPat CumminsSuryakumar YadavTravis HeadVirat Kohli