[deehunk]

Rohit's position was similar to that of Sachin, who captained India in the late 90's and had to attack the bowlers from the very first ball, but he did not get much success. It has been 5 years since any new talent in either batting or bowling has made it to the national team from domestic cricket. What is NCA doing with the youngsters? I feel proud of Rohit Sharma, who sacrificed his No.1 position and played the role of pinch hitter. If there should be no postmortem from the public, then please stop playing the national anthem in cricket matches.

[akhil994]

Originally Posted by msdivy

Throughout the tournament, India had chinks in the armor. But brilliant individual performances camouflaged those chinks and ensured the team crossed the finishing line.

The pitch was the same for both teams. So I would say poor batting cost India the cup.

All the instances mentioned by you are just performances by different team members. Bowling and batting clicking together, which is what a team sport should be like. Else an ideal game would be 5 bowlers taking 2 wickets each and bowling the opposition out and the 6 batsmen scoring the runs split equally amongst them? - Doesn't happen.

There were no chinks in the armor as such. Game state in all matches were different and the entire team contributed and stood up when required in various matches.

And yes - The pitch was not the same for both teams, the conditions made a huge difference

[PPS]

Originally Posted by ferrarirules

Rohit played another rash shot which he has done whole tournament and got out. But this was a world cup final, was there a change of temperament needed? - Yes it was.

Rohit had taken the high risk approach all through the tournament & was having a strike-rate of 135 in the first 10 overs in the entire WC. But thats what you get with this approach. Could he have been a bit greedy & settled down like he did against England? Sure. But atleast his intent was correct to take on Maxwell their 5th bowler!

India reached 40 overs with a score 197-5 with KL and SKY at the crease. Another 70-80 runs would have taken them to a total of 270-280 (286 was the highest score on the ground for the tournament). KL being a set batsmen and SKY on the crease to support it should have been easily achievable. But they could only manage 40 runs and lost 5 wickets. And think about it none of the 5 wickets were lost with someone playing a big shot and getting caught at the fence. According to me, this is where India lost the match.

Easily achievable? 250 was looking difficult on that slow pitch. It would have taken a herculean effort to get 280 on that pitch with no pace at all! To make matters worse there was a hint of reverse swing as well due to the extremely dry surface. Thats how Jadeja & KL got themselves out. You also have to understand the mindset of KL & SKY, they couldn't have attacked knowing fully well that next 4 players to follow cannot even hang around forget scoring runs!

Originally Posted by NPV

I think what Dravid said yesterday makes a lot of sense and we should stop doing further post mortem on this loss, please!
Key point - let’s move on!

Easier to say for Dravid since he won't be continuing as Coach but its important for this team to learn from this defeat. Granted this is probably India's greatest & most dominant ODI team but they need to take it up a notch next time round. Offcourse most of these players may not be around next 50 over WC.

Originally Posted by harry10

We were table toppers in 2015 and 2019 world cup also if I remember right. Even in Champions trophy 2017 which we lost to Pakistan we were toppers. We have played both WTC finals too by being on top. Topping table or winning 10 games in a row means zilch if you can't perform in the ultimate final which is everything to lift the trophy.Indian team never looked like charged up to win from any situation like they did whole tournament. I don't know why and that's what makes me more angry on their performance.

Also Indian players don't do us favors by playing. They get huge amount of money and fame to play for India. More than anyone else in any other cricket country. If they get the accolades then they will get the blame when they can't bring a single ICC trophy in 10 years. No one is trolling here. People are hurt and they will ask questions for this abysmal performance. And they have to be accountable for not even giving a proper fight in finals. Even SA gave a good fight defending just 212. Here our players just gave up. Beats me why.

+100

Originally Posted by harry10

Has to be a mental issue. Can't be skills. I think bcci needs to invest into a mental conditioning coach or something like that.

I think they had Paddy Upton a decade back & even during 2003 they had someone for a few months. Don't think they hired anyone in recent times.

SKY has been named Captain for Australian T20. I hope this time selectors stick him with t20s only where he does well. Hardik is going to miss SA tour as well.

With Hardik's fragile body he'll miss more games than play! Its better Selectors look at a very strong Vice-Captain, not sure who's capable though.

Originally Posted by harry10

Sky was never a ODI player.

The Team Management got very dazzled with his T20 strokeplay & once Pant was ruled out they locked him for that enforcers role in late middle order position. They were adamant & kept faith in him inspite of more capable players like Samson around, unfortunately he couldn't repay the faith!

And stop playing same players in every format for God's sake. Learn something from Aussies for a change.

Just wait for the SA tour. The usual suspects like KL will be back in the Test Squad ! There's also an ODI series there & most probably similar team as the WC Finals will play there as a warmup before the Test Match Series!

[Satish Pari]

Ultimately in the end, the better team won. Australia outclassed us in all departments. It was disappointing to lose, but Australia were just better. Personally for me, the game of cricket was the real winner yesterday.

Records whether personal or team records are irrelevant if one falters at the summit. Virat may have crossed Sachin's record, India won 10 games in a row but it is the final which matters and we failed there.

[dailydriver]

The day after the 2003 World Cup finals, I was attending an orientation programme in Mysore. When the resource person asked us to analyse the result, I answered that it was more of India's defeat than Australia's win; that we literally handed them the cup.

I was forced to remember that comment when this meme landed in my chat box.



Humne dia, unhone lia!

[ABHI_1512]

This thread will go silent in a day or two. Going through the posts after the final makes some interesting reading. Australia won deservedly but few things rankled yesterday. I am listing some of things here:

1. The Ahmedabad crowd has faced the flak for the Pakistan match as well. But for a World Cup Final, the crowd was just not there at all for their own team, forget Australia.

2. The prize distribution was done in front of an empty stadium almost. Most bizarrely, Pat Cummins was handed the cup alone on the podium and he was left stranded on the podium holding the cup with no one around till the handshakes with the Chief guests were over and the players were allowed onto the podium. Probably every body feared a rerun of the Sharad Pawar fiasco from 2003 !!

3. Australia deserved a better crowd as winners. One of the major and historic test centers should have been allotted the final instead of Ahmedabad. Just because the stadium is large doesn’t mean anything. A Eden Garden or a Wankhade is always a better proposition. I read that someone mentioned about the incident of 96 semifinal at Eden as an example for not allotting a knock out match while conveniently forgetting that some of the best knock out matches from multinational tournaments have been played at the same venue. Even the matches not involving India have been played in front of a full stadium. The World Cup final between Australia and England in 87 comes to my mind and so is the brilliant Hero cup played in 1993 as well as the recent semifinal between Australia and South Africa ! There is a reason that Eden Gardens or a Wankhade is chosen as match venue for big matches and not the DY Patil stadium or the newly built stadium in Ranchi !!

4. It was bizarre to see Jay Shah walk with the chief guests and not Roger Binny, to give away the trophy to the podium. It was as if, the Board President is a rubber stamp post and everything is guided from somewhere else, which is true and we all know that but to do that so blatantly was perhaps the sign of the times. In fact the presence of Sachin Tendulkar was also out of place. A Kapil Dev or a Mahendra Singh Dhoni would have been so graceful.

5. If the match was played on a fresh pitch ( which is always the case) and not a used one, I am fully confident that India would have played much better. In order to provide favourable conditions to the home team, the used pitch was played but it backfired badly. We never needed any favours since this team had won on different surfaces over the course of the World Cup.

6. We were prepared with plan A and never thought of a plan B. A player like Surya Kumar Yadav hardly got to bat through the World Cup since he never got that many balls to play. There was a chance to play him higher and provide some match practise to him when we had already qualified for the knock outs but instead we played with the same rule. Jadeja batting above him in the finals was a joke. In fact, I thought that he will even bat higher than Rahul just to break the shackles. Rahul and Kohli should have been more proactive during the middle overs. To not see any boundaries for almost 15 overs doesn’t really gel with the class and quality that they both possess. If Kohli, Rohit can bowl for fun against Netherlands then the same logic applied to the batters as well and they should have been promoted up the order to gain the vital match practise before the knock outs but that was not to be.

7. This Indian team, I am proud off, for the way they conducted themselves through the World Cup. Everybody wants to play for win and they did it all through the tournament but a more prepared Australian team came in and crashed the party. Let’s applaud the winners

[NiInJa]

Haven't read through all the posts, so just going to rant even if most of it has already been posted earlier.

I am not an avid cricket follower, nor have I played leather ball cricket beyond the usual 'galli' or on a proper ground.

And yet, It was hard to miss how Australia looked way too much prepared for the game while Indian team was just ready with whatever ammunition they had on the field. Our off-field preparation just wasn't there. It is a lesson worth learning, in the game of cricket or about life in general.

Their fielding for each player, especially for Rohit Sharma and Kohli was meticulously planned. They bowled as if they had been studying each batsman for years. Fielded like my friend put it 'jaise maataa aa gayi hai' (The fierce Goddess has entered their bodies).

Despite of all this, we still had a good chance if we had not leaked so many runs in the initial overs.

Anyway, We were brilliant as a team. I just hope we plan like the Aussies next time. Another 4 years of wait :(

[dailydriver]

Here and elsewhere, the dissection and postmortem of the finals will continue ad nauseum. Of the many opinion pieces and editorials dwelling on the subject, I found this piece in The Indian Express rather interesting and incisive.

[harry10]

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

This thread will go silent in a day or two. Going through the posts after the final makes some interesting reading. Australia won deservedly but few things rankled yesterday. I am listing some of things here:

4. It was bizarre to see Jay Shah walk with the chief guests and not Roger Binny, to give away the trophy to the podium. It was as if, the Board President is a rubber stamp post and everything is guided from somewhere else, which is true and we all know that but to do that so blatantly was perhaps the sign of the times. In fact the presence of Sachin Tendulkar was also out of place. A Kapil Dev or a Mahendra Singh Dhoni would have been so graceful.

7. This Indian team, I am proud off, for the way they conducted themselves through the World Cup. Everybody wants to play for win and they did it all through the tournament but a more prepared Australian team came in and crashed the party. Let’s applaud the winners

I saw the clip yesterday. Huge disrespect to Pat Cummins leaving him hanging on the stage alone. What else can be expected from these incompetent idiots. They had all the masala ready for you know who and why but then India lost the game and they were left red face not knowing what to do. I hated Ponting when we lost 2003 but I am happy for Cummins. He is a genuinely good guy and leader of his team. It's not a small feat winning WTC and World cup together in same year.

Ahmedabad crowd is the worst I believe as per everyone who saw the match. Wankhade, eden gardens or even Chinnaswamy could have hosted the game and crowd would have been more sportive.

I had no hope when tournament started for India to play such aggressive cricket. They did and that gave me hope which wasn't there when tournament started. Maybe that's why disappointment is more. They Rightly say 'It's the hope which kills you'. Life goes on.

On an unrelated note maybe Pakistan thrashing in soon to come Australia test series may give me some solace

Edit- Read in morning BCCI didn't invite Kapil Dev for finals. Shows how petty and useless they are. First World cup winning Captain and greatest Allrounder India has produced till now is ignored cos of politics. Shameful.

[hothatchaway]

Originally Posted by harry10

Ahmedabad crowd is the worst I believe as per everyone who saw the match. Wankhade, eden gardens or even Chinnaswamy could have hosted the game and crowd would have been more sportive.

I don't have stats but am pretty sure a sizeable % of the WC final crowd would have travelled from outside Ahmedabad, so its unfair to pan the localites. I have never been at the Ahd stadium so cannot comment on the crowd/atmosphere in general but hard to blame the spectators from leaving early when it turned into a no contest. At least some fight was expected! To rough translate a renowned Bengali sports journalist who had this to say "imagine being invited to the biggest, fattest wedding of the year, where you pay a small fortune to pay for the air tickets to travel to the event...and then being forced to attend a funeral" I think that just about sums it up

[jungleroars]

To All those who are blaming Ahmedabad crowd, do you guys really have numbers of people from Ahmedabad who were there in stadium and people from outside?

Believe me, genuine Ahmedabad crowd never got the tickets. Tickets were only bought online by black marketeers and was sold later. And believe me, more tickets were sold offline (black market) outside GJ for this final. All hotels, even small homes were booked by people across the country, trains arriving at Ahmedabad were jam packed, airline tickets were not available even if you are ready to pay premium.

Just my two cents.

[congruent.cars]

If we keep the detailed technical analysis behind the finals debacle aside, here are the 3 very basic, primal factors that affected the outcome:

1. India made significantly more number of unforced errors in all departments. Side Note: Just like in tennis, broadcasters should start showing the unforced errors metric in the telecast.
2. India effectively played with 7 men on the park. Gill, Iyer, SKY, Siraj hardly had any contribution/impact. In a stark contrast, almost all 11 Aussies contributed positively is some way or the other.
3. More rub of the green went Australia’s way- be it toss, conditions, catches carrying/taken or not, playing & missing, umpires' calls etc.

Just by controlling the number of unforced errors, we could have had our hands on that elusive Cup.

[am1m]

Like a switch has been turned off, all talk of the World Cup seems to have stopped among people I know and on the days I go to the office. Quite a difference because till Sunday afternoon, that's all we were discussing.

Pretty sad, because all things considered, this was a great World Cup. I mean do we watch cricket because we enjoy the game or only to watch India win? And it's not like the team did badly, I thought we did great and had one off-day. It happens.

About Ahmedabad as the venue choice, I'm not a fan of all the politics involved either, but it's the largest stadium in the world- where else will a country hosting the World Cup schedule the final?! I thought that made perfect sense. Crowd behavior is the same almost everywhere unfortunately. Not many enjoy a great game, we just want to be entertained with an Indian victory and personal milestones by our individual heroes. I don't think any venue is different. At least thank god the days of burning stands and pelting stones at players' houses are over.

[Emvi]

Since the beginning of the last decade, Team India has emerged as one of the most consistent cricket teams worldwide across all formats. They consistently reach the business end of ICC events, however, they are consistently faltering in crucial knockout matches or title clashes. So, blaming the past teams and the current one for a lack of consistency is unjustified.

Now, focusing on the world cup final, India pretty much lost the match even before it actually started. Indian think-tank got the strategy horribly wrong. As Rohith Sharma revealed, India would have batted even if they had won the toss. So, luck did not play a part, at least in this instance. And as already discussed multiple times, India erred in team selection and batting order as well. The Aussies fielded magnificently well, there's no doubt about that. To be honest, aside from that, Australians weren't great, but good enough to beat India on the day. And that's what matters in the end.

[AtheK]

One bad day!!