World Cup Final: Pat Cummins and Co silence India as proud Australian head rises again

Australia are six time ODI world champions. No team has won more than two and here six out of 13 World Cup trophies sit in Australia’s cupboard. Mind-boggling as that record may be, even more incredible is their victory in the Cricket World Cup 2023, against hosts India. In India.

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Everything coming into final was against Australia. They weren’t the form team. That was India with 10 wins from 10 matches. Their players didn’t rule the individual stats charts. It was India’s Virat Kohli who was at the top of run-scorers list and his compatriot Mohammed Shami led the race for the wicket-takers. They were away from home and at the world’s largest 1,32,000-capacity cricket stadium, amid an ocean of blue, that would bring even the best to their knees.

Do you know how they responded to that?

By winning the toss and opting to field.



The audacity to do that, in front of over one lakh people who sang Vande Matram in such sync that a battle would have been half won by then, is what makes Australia what they are.

The audacity and self belief never left Australia even if their golden generation left the team. It is what helped them recover from two straight defeats at the start of 2023 World Cup – against India and South Africa – to then script a nine-game winning streak that took them to the title.

In the all-important final, Cummins didn’t take the easy way out to bat first and escape the scoreboard pressure. They are the true professionals and Australians wanted to show that.

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In the ’90s when Australia made mockery of India, which was far too often, we were always told a cultural change was needed to challenge the Aussies. We needed to be professional like them.

India have made massive progress but it is apparent there’s still some catching up to do. And it’s this element, to be able to successfully disassociate the emotions and feelings from the the job on hand, is what proved to be the difference in the final.

Forever etched in history