Another Final Gone

 

Its 11^th June 2023, a lazy Sunday afternoon but as the time passes and as we closed in on 3 o’clock, everyone was waiting with baited breath to see how the 5^th day of the World Test Championship Final of the 2021-2023 cycle unfolds. Billions of Indians waiting for the game to start, had a lot of hope as well as a lot of doubts. Even though the star from Gabba was missing, we had tasted that feeling of winning an unlikely match a couple of years ago. Hence even though everyone was skeptical about India’s chances, there was some sort of belief in the team, in the players, in the crowd and in the huge number of onlookers from around the world. It was a steady start to the session, where 2-3 runs were being scored of each over and that was going to suffice. Boland and Cummins were bowling tight lines and boundary balls were definitely not on offer. Boland, bowling the 7^th over of the day did exactly what all the Indians dreaded. He bowled a delivery well wide of the off stump to Kohli and as we have seen so often with him, he couldn’t resist himself and went for the booming drive with an angled bat, found the edge and Smith took a brilliant catch at 2^nd slip, thereby crushing all the hopes that Indian fans had. The more I look at that dismissal, the more I am disgusted by that shot. We had hardly recovered from the absolutely atrocious attempt at the upper cut by Pujara who was supposed to hold one end up. Now we had to see Kohli committing to a ball which was almost on 9^th to 10^th stump line, and throwing his wicket away. Prior to Pujara, even the captain Rohit had played an unnecessary sweep against Lyon in his very first over and got trapped LBW. This was again a typical Rohit Sharma dismissal. Not in terms of the shot he played but in the terms of the time he was dismissed. He was batting fluently and nothing really troubled him during his stay at the crease. And suddenly from nowhere he attempts a paddle sweep, misses it completely and is rightly adjudged out. This pattern has been evident for majority of the period in the recent past and has now gone beyond excuses like intent, setting the tone, etc.

Ever since the 1^st day India was trying to catch up due to some very average bowling from the pace quartet along with Jadeja. I personally feel India should have gone with Ashwin in place of Umesh Yadav. I agree that conditions in England lure you into playing four seamers but Ashwin is a world class spinner. He is the No.1 ranked bowler in the world. It also helps his cause that the Aussie batting line up is filled with left handers and Ashwin has a phenomenal record against lefties. Ashwin is also a wicket taking and attacking bowler, unlike Jadeja who is best at containing. Another poor strategic decision was to waste a very important toss. Overcast conditions are very tempting and could make you feel like you can bundle out the opposition cheaply but it is deceiving. India has a very good record overseas after batting first as compared to bowling first. All that said and done, India still should have put up a better batting performance in the 1^st inning. Rohit’s feet did not go anywhere, Gill and Pujara misjudged the ball horribly, Kohli was on front foot to a ball he should have been on back foot, Jadeja went fishing for a ball outside off. The batting has been letting us down since the lockdown. For once, the bowling wasn’t up to the mark and we needed the batting to step up but it disappointed again. And this time the pitch and the conditions cannot be blamed for the poor display of batting.

After all this, we are still with the question of when will India finally lift an ICC trophy. I think unless we treat these events as special it won’t happen. It will not happen till the team is indifferent about the matches that they play. Treating every match as the same is okay in IPL but not in global events. Global Events mean something and to win these events you need to treat it like a special event. The chance to play in the final of a global event should be given the importance and attention that it deserves. Losing a final and claiming that we played well to reach here is just a way of covering face. Playing a final should be compared only with playing any other final and not the matches that brought you to the final. Hoping that the mindset changes and we can hear the opposing captain say about us “India was better than us on the day, credit goes to them. We tried our best but they applied themselves really well and outplayed us in every department. So, Congratulations to them.”