In a massive disappointment for over a lakh spectators in Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad and crores of cricket fans in the country, India lost the final in the ICC World Cup against Australia, the first loss in the tournament. Australia won the match by 6 wickets, easily chasing a target of 240 runs in 43 overs.
Travis Head led the victory with 137 runs in 120 balls, aided by Marnus Labuschagne. Head was out with just one needed to win, and they scored 241 in 43 overs after the loss of 4 wickets.
After a brief moment of scare, the Australian batters Travis Head and Marnus Labuschange steaded the ship to the finish line prompting the Pat Cummins-led side to lift their sixth World Cup trophy. The duo stitched a 192-run partnership when the Aussies were rocked by three quick back-to-back wickets and were in shaky waters at 47-3 inside the first powerplay.
While Head maintained a near run-a-ball strike rate throughout his innings and scored an impactful ton, Labuschange upped his game when it mattered the most. In a low-scoring game, he held the one end despite pitch spitting odds balls at times.
Strikingly, right from the toss, Australians demonstrated the hunger to stretch their record of the most number of World Cup titles and choked runs for the Indian batters once Indian skipper Rohit Sharma departed courtesy of Travis Head’s spectacular running catch. The boundaries were hard to come by, at one time, cautious Indian batters could only manage to strike just a boundary in around 30-odd overs. Notably, the odd bad balls were backed by precise field settings and fired-up Australian fielders throwing themselves around.
On the other hand, Indian batters particularly opener Shubhman Gill and Shreyas Iyer allowed nerves to get the better of them and knicked at all the wrong times. In their less-than-over innings, they looked shaky and added pressure to toll up on the Indian squad.
However, the old adage that it is the middle overs game that decides the fate of any close encounter again manifested in the much-awaited finals. The biggest difference between both sides and one that ended India’s hope is how India and Australia played through the middle overs. While India, rocked by back-to-back two wickets of Rohit and Iyer, struggled to score at more than 2-3 per over even against Australia’s sixth balling option.
Additionally, whenever Indian batters were on the brink of putting their foot down on the accelerator after consolidation they suffered major blows. Virat Kohli, who has been in stellar form and ended as the leading run scorer in this World Cup 2023 tournament, chopped on Cummin’s delivery.
Australia, on the other hand, despite being under pressure after three wickets, churned runs at will in the middle overs, and with an odd boundary here and there, they kept narrowing the gap till the time ensuring a convincing victory.
After negating the moving ball by Indian pacers Shami and Bumrah who had their tail up, Head and Labuschange stitched 192 the record run-partnership in any World Cup final.