As Pat Cummins and his players basked in the afterglow of a sixth Men’s World Cup title for Australia – undoubtedly a contender for their biggest – thousands of Indian supporters poured out of this giant cricketing coliseum in a state of utter disbelief.
Gone was the idea that this day would fulfill India’s destiny in their home tournament, a fine team featuring some all-time greats – Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah, no less – seeing a thrilling run of ten consecutive last-place victories to disappear. Cummins, a Blue Mountains boy in an ocean of blue shirts, had masterminded a truly famous heist.
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Even after India had stumbled and scratched their way to 240 on a grim, slow pitch, their adoring, if largely reactive, supporters had immediate reason for hope. In a shaky start to the chase, which had all the hallmarks of India’s journey to this point, Bumrah and Mohammed Shami wreaked what looked like match-winning havoc.
But from 47 for three in seven utterly foolish overs – Steve Smith was the last to fall lbw and fail to call for the review that would have saved him – two batters in Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne showed the kind of resilience and skill that has gone through all these years. Australian cricket history like the words through a piece of canary yellow rock.
Head missed the first five games of the tournament with a broken hand, but Cummins, knowing his worth, didn’t blink. And the gamble to keep the place open ultimately yielded the ultimate payoff: a masterful 137 from 120 balls – combined with a steadfast 58 not out from Labuschagne – that clinched the target, four wickets behind with seven overs to spare.
While Labuschagne chiseled away at one end, blunting the Indian spinners, the South Australian southpaw with the bushy moustache had taken on the riskier role, hitting 15 fours and four sixes. Among them was a four that greeted what felt like Shami’s crucial return in the 24th over, with Head sending it back where it came from on the way to his 95-ball century.
Head fell short of goal twice, but at least it provided a deserved solo moment in the spotlight; a chance for the remaining supporters to pay their dues. Kohli graciously rushed forward to offer a pat on the back. Head had become the third Australian man after Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting to score a century in a World Cup final.
The final blow instead came from Glenn Maxwell, after a mighty 192-run fourth-wicket stand, hitting his first ball off the Mohammed Siraj square. Causing a stampede of teammates onto the pitch, Sharma’s men initially stood there somewhat bewildered. Handshakes followed, of course, but this scene wasn’t in the script at all.
If Head and Labuschagne were the toast of Australians around the world – the spark for a dazzling light show that only deepened the pain for India – then Cummins’ fingerprints were all over this place.
In a year in which he lifted the mace of the World Test Championship and retained the Ashes in England, this achievement – walking into India’s supposed home coronation and taking the crown – certainly ranks right up there.
Cummins had first raised quite a few eyebrows when, after an aerial display of aerobatics by the Indian Air Force’s 52nd Squadron, he won the toss and made the seam-up gesture with two fingers to bowl. Those thoughts increased when his counterpart, Sharma, put on a bit of a show himself, hitting three sixes in a 31-ball 47 before a combination of Maxwell and Head’s scintillating tumbling catch ended it.
Yet Sharma’s early attacks had earlier led to an avalanche of Indian runs in the tournament and the crowd expected a repeat. But Cummins kept his nerves under control. He used his resources cleverly, not least when he noticed one of the balls starting to turn, pushing it into the hands of Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood. The pair were sublime, sharing five wickets, with Cummins claiming two for 34.
Among them was one of countless occasions when the ground turned into the world’s largest library, with Kohli, who had settled to reach 54 off 63, hearing a defensive cannon on his stumps. The India icon had seen his record number of runs at this tournament stop at 765, and it seemed to take forever to drag himself out of the middle.
It was 29 overs in what had become an arduous crawl for India, an 80-run powerplay off 12 boundaries replaced by a tortured 40-over grind that yielded just four more. Australia delivered another livewire fielding display, Josh Inglis becoming the first wicketkeeper to claim five catches in a World Cup final, and Adam Zampa claiming his 23rd wicket of the campaign, equaling Muttiah Muralitharan’s record for a male spinner.
The battle for India, which virtually began after Cummins knocked over Shreya’s Iyer’s third ball in the 11th over, was summed up by a 107-ball 66 from the usually fluent KL Rahul, who hit just one four. A late flourish could have followed, only if the old ball skills of Starc and Hazlewood had tied things up repeatedly.
A score on the board and Australia’s previous shortcomings in spin in the subcontinent still gave India an equal chance, with the pendulum even swinging their way as David Warner, Mitch Marsh and Smith were quickly evaporated. Australia, trying to break the chase early, were initially all over the shop, summed up by Smith’s mistake.
But an Indian team that had considered (but ultimately resisted) signing Ravichandran Ashwin for this moonscape failed to create another meaningful chance. Instead, Head and Labuschagne calmly built a partnership and a victory that will enter their country’s folklore, joining the triumphs of 1987, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2015.
All that was left for India to do was collect the second-place medals and watch as their Prime Minister, the man whose name adorns this gigantic ground in Ahmedabad, handed over the World Cup to the deserving Cummins. At the end of what seemed to be a 46-day procession for the hosts, we were reminded that in sport nothing is predetermined.