When every opponent failed to match up to India, Pat Cummins-led Australia not only matched the Men In Blue but upstaged them in the ODI World Cup final at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday. Australia, who won the toss and invited the hosts to bat first, piledrive India in almost every department and the results were evident.
Despite assembling a star-studded batting line-up, which until then had been phenomenal, could only muster 240 on the board. In response Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah did raise some hopes but all of it were crushed by Travis Head, who knocked 137(20) in the 241-chase, accompanied with a gritty show by Marnus Labuschagne, who returned unbeaten on 58(110). Australia eventually wrapped the proceedings in 43 overs and won the match by six wickets.
Australia in the process added a sixth world title in their trophy cabinet, also making Cummins the fifth Aussie captain to achieve the feat. In an interaction with ICC, Cummins spoke about the pep talk he delivered to his unit and also touched on the crowd factor.
“I just told the boys ‘today is not the today to stand back and wait for someone else to do it. Be that guy’. Our motto for the tournament was ‘if not me, then who’. Be that guy, be that matchwinner, and just finish the game without regrets and everyone did that,” said Cummins.
Cummins achieved what no other captains could during the course of the tournament. The win was even more special as very few Australian faces were present in a stadium flooded with blue. Cummins had also addressed the same in the pre-match press conference, where he mentioned the focus will be to silence them and so was the case.
“Yeah, that’s huge. That was like a 12th player for them, having 1,00,000 fans going nuts. When they get noisy, it can really throw you off your game. Our goal was to embrace the crowd, acknowledge them but do everything we can to try and shut them up.
“It was a real bit eerie, but it was great. That was our aim and we celebrated those moments,” he added.
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