The Men in Blue lost the ICC World Cup final match against the Pat Cummins-led Australian team on Sunday. It was a defeat that broke a billion Indian hearts. Having won nine consecutive matches in the Group stage, the home team seemed invincible. It was with great expectations, in other words, that fans of Indian cricket sat in front of their television sets to watch the finals against the Men in Yellow at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday. More than one lakh fans bought tickets, with visitors from elsewhere spending much more, to enjoy the experience inside the stadium.
The cricket ground seemed like an island surrounded by a bright blue sea. As the match progressed, the enthusiasm and noise inside the stadium was replaced by an uneasy hush. After losing three wickets with 47 on the board in response to India’s modest score of 240, the visiting team’s aggressive opener Travis Head and the patient Marnus Labuschagne were stitching together a fine fourth wicket partnership. Every Indian cricket fan sat in stunned silence as Australia eventually won by six wickets in 43 overs to lift their sixth championship title. India failed to put up a fight. After making their rivals look ordinary in the Group stage matches, the home team looked the same against the purposeful visitors. A phenomenal month and a half for the Men in Blue ended with a heartbreaking disappointment.
Nobody had expected to see a mediocre Indian batting performance. Rohit Sharma fell for a fine 47 after Head ran backwards to take an unbelievably brilliant catch. Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer got out cheaply. Virat Kohli watched in agony, having dragged the ball onto his stumps after scoring 54. KL Rahul faced 107 deliveries to score 66, partly because he had to prevent the possibility of a quick collapse. Sent ahead of Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja did not get going. SKY gave strike to tailenders, probably because he felt he needed to protect his wicket until the end. The wicket’s slowness led to his downfall. The ball reached the fence merely four times between the 11th and 50th overs, the most shocking fact of the day.
There wasn’t much good news from the bowlers either. Although India might have hoped for a win after the fall of the first three Australian wickets, the bowling attack seemed increasingly incapable of doing much on a track that became slightly easier to bat on during the Australian innings. Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami beat the batters with their movement and speed at the start of the Australian innings, and a few Jadeja deliveries spun sharply. But the usually lethal Indian attack failed to do what was necessary: pick up wickets at regular intervals and check the flow of runs. Rahul, who had been brilliant behind the stumps during the Group stage matches, was disappointingly ordinary on that one occasion. Too much went wrong, sadly, on the wrong day.
Every fan of Indian cricket wanted to see an Indian win. What most of us forgot or ignored is that while victories give us joy, failures are inevitable. After the end of the World Cup, in other words, let us remember this edition for the brilliant Indian performance that resulted in nine successive wins. Virat Kohli went past Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49 ODI centuries and emerged as the leading run-getter of the tournament. Shami was the leading wicket-taker. Sharma was outstanding as the captain, and his aggressive starts as an opener played a big role in India’s performance. Rahul, Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav, Jadeja, Iyer, Gill and Mohammed Siraj gave us many reasons for celebrating the team’s journey. There was no fairytale ending, but what unfolded in the days before the finals was a mesmerizing dream.
The Indian fan is doubly disappointed because the Men in Blue seemed invincible throughout the tournament. Although Australia had rediscovered its form, self-belief and appetite for victory after two initial losses in the Group stage against India and South Africa, few viewed the Pat Cummins-led squad as the favourites for the title. But the Men in Yellow proved they had what it takes to beat the best performer of the tournament on the big stage. Was it destiny? Was it bad luck? If neither, then what? It was cricket. That’s it.
The writer, a journalist for three decades, writes on literature and pop culture. Among his books are ‘MSD: The Man, The Leader’, the bestselling biography of former Indian captain MS Dhoni, and the ‘Hall of Fame’ series of film star biographies. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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