Cricket World Cup final: Australia defeat India to silence 1.4 billion fans and steal another trophy
The immense uncertainty surrounding the future of international cricket makes this World Cup final defeat even tougher to take for India, writes Daniel Cherny.
If Australia II’s victory over Liberty off the coast of Rhode Island 40 years ago remains close to the nation’s most famous sporting triumph, then Pat Cummins’ side’s clinical dismantling of Rohit Sharma’s outfit can quite legitimately be mentioned in the same breath.
Beating America on the water in 1983 secured the America’s Cup.
Technically, defeating India on Sunday night in Ahmedabad claimed the World Cup. But in so many respects, this was India’s cup. Until it wasn’t.
Australia II had to come from 3-1 down to win 4-3. These Aussies started 0-2 before winning nine straight to claim the title.
There weren’t 132 years of US hegemony to defy. But there was a 132,000-capacity stadium, named after the Prime Minister of the most populous nation in the world, a country without whom the cricket ecosystem would crumble.
Officially it was the ICC World Cup, but with a wink and a nudge there was little doubt Indian authorities were running the show, right up until match eve when a pitch received convenient attention in the middle and very little at either end.
The absence of a left-arm wrist spinner in the nets for Australian training on Saturday afternoon, officially down to illness, was another sign that made those in the Aussie camp chuckle at how much this tournament was being played on India’s terms.
In the end though Australia didn’t need any local assistance to contend with Kuldeep Yadav, or Ravindra Jadeja. In Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne, they had a pair of significantly contrasting players overcoming different types of adversity to stifle India’s spinners and ensure that what shaped as a difficult run chase ended up being a cruise.
This Australian team’s answer to Ben Lexcen’s winged keel was Pat Cummins’ decision to bowl first when winning the toss. It was a call against the old-guard wisdom runs on the board being paramount in finals, especially given a cracking wicket could have further deteriorated and Australia’s chasing form in this tournament had been mixed.
But in hindsight, it was a stroke of genius.
The Aussies correctly wagered that conditions for batting would get easier once dew came into play, having been on the other side of the equation when Sri Lanka chased down an almost identical total at Lahore in the 1996 World Cup final.
Cummins, such an easy target with those with agendas both cricket and non-cricket related, bowled superbly, showcasing his array of variations and further shoring up his status, ironically given some of his critics over the years, as a former great of the future.
The win is a vital legacy piece for an XI of whom eight were denied an outright away Ashes series win on day five at The Oval. But even without that feather in their cap, Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, David Warner, Steve Smith, Mitch Marsh and Glenn Maxwell are all dual one-day World Cup winners, to go with a Twenty20 world title two years ago and for much of that group, a maiden World Test Championship crown earlier this year.
They are resumes in which it is increasingly difficult to pick holes, and with another T20 World Cup to come next June in the Caribbean and US, the prospect of becoming the first team to hold men’s cricket’s triple crown beckons.
Given the immense uncertainty surrounding the future of international cricket amid the franchise boom, there’s no guarantee another opportunity to win the treble will be available again.
How galling that must be for India, whose decade of despair at ICC events continues unabated. If not now, in front of what was officially 92,453 fans (capacity is reduced significantly from 132,000 because of sight screens and other installations) almost entirely decked in blue, after what was effectively a faultless tournament before Sunday, then when? Money can buy shiny light displays, aircraft flyovers and weird kitsch chariots parading around the stadium, but it can’t buy success.
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