2023 Men’s Cricket World Cup Finale - A looksee

Background: The stage was set for the men in blue. The build up was almost perfect. Having won the Asia cup just prior to the World Cup, team India went up to the top of the ranking in 2 of the 3 categories of cricket formats. Rohit and his team went hammer and tongs against all teams in the league games of the WC. All top batters were tested in the 10 games preceding the finale. The template was set. The captain leads from the front. When batting first, team India goes ultra aggressive led from the front by their captain who makes batting look easy. The strike rate of Rohit far outweighs all other batters in the 2023 WC. The selfless approach to live and die by the sword, setting the stage for the remaining batters to leverage the boost given to going on to building an insurmountable total, which takes the game out of reach for the opposition. When batting second, the inspired captaincy of Rohit led to the right bowling changes at right times, getting key wickets at critical intervals, making the bowling attack seem like a pack of wild dogs hunting for the kill. No mercy even for smaller teams was the characteristic of the 2023 WC campaign. Having beaten all teams in the leagues, there didnt appear to be a single chink in the armor and stage was set for the grand finale at the world’s largest cricket stadium in Ahmedabad.

Laurels: Highest run scorer - Virat Kohli
Highest wicket taker - Mohammed Shami
Highest number of sixes in a World Cup - Rohit Sharma

On the day: Rohit losses the toss and yet gets to bat first which seemed to be team India’s strength. Rohit starts going his usual flamboyant style with scant disregard for the opposition. However, the intent from the Aussies were very evident from the first over, where the fielding team did some exceptional fielding, stopping a lot of boundaries in the first power play. This was done by studying each and every batsmen’s strengths and setting the field and bowling to the field set. It seemed like the best of shots seemed to be finding fielders instead of rushing to the boundary. A couple of inspired catches and the opening batsmen have departed, but the crowd isn’t that worried as team India has a lot more star names who have been in similar situations and have taken on the arduous task of rebuilding and the initial platform was set for the same reason. However a couple of back to back wickets meant that the task just got a little bit harder. Both batsmen seemed to be lacking in intent towards taking the fight to the opposition, content with batting at a below par 3 runs per over. Kohli is known for converting ones to twos and twos to threes and ends up putting the opposition under pressure. However during the stand between Rahul and Kohli, this intent was missing. Rahul seemed to be playing a test match, which was needed for a few overs to consolidate, but 15 overs without the ball touching the fence meant that the intent was missing and the team was more keen to avoid a total collapse and instead focus on getting to a ‘respectable’ score, which may not have been sufficient to challenge the opposition, but there was a well placed faith in the lethal bowling attack on a pitch that seemed to be unfavorable to the batters. However when Kohli got out to an inspired delivery from Cummins after doing a lot of the toil, the game was all but lost, as there needed to be a consolidation to preserve the previous consolidation. When a total of 240 was set, it seemed to be 40 runs short of what an at-par score would have been. However, the bowling attack may have been able to get early wickets and bring back the game in favor of team India. The bowling changes by Rohit was mostly uninspired which was different from the rest of the games. Shami has been tried and tested with the new ball and his record with that hasnt been stellar, which was opposite to Siraj. The decision to hand the new ball to Shami was inexplicable. The Indians didn't seem to have done their homework on player to player match up, exploring weakness and bowling to the field set. An aura of invincibility can always lead to God-complex, which seemed to be the case. Full marks to the Aussies for doing their homework and bringing their A-game to the game that mattered the most, which is something the Aussies have always done in all big tournament finals.

Conclusion: Having followed the team journey for the entire WC and even before, I would still say that this was the best team that has ever been put up by team India in World cups. This was the best bowling attack with all bowlers having delivered in league games. All batsmen had performed in all league games as well. Despite the final outcome, I would bleed blue all over for now and every sport has got to have a winner and a loser and the better team wins. The best of champions can have an off day where everything seems to not go their way, and that is exactly what happened. The fact that the bad day happened on the most important day is definitely unfortunate and seems to be a ghost that seems to haunt team India from a long time. However, I am proud of the team accomplishments during happy days, and will be there as a proud supporter even during challenging times as well.

BharatBhakt