India skipper Rohit Sharma felt that India were “20-30 runs” short of what they had targeted once Virat Kohli and KL Rahul were batting in the middle in the World Cup 2023 final against Australia on Sunday.
Pat Cummins and his Australian team silenced the 120,000 Indian fans and over a billion across worldwide as Australia lifted their 6th ODI World Cup trophy, defeating hosts India in the final at the gigantic Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad.
Pat Cummins had won the toss and elected to bowl first, and his bowlers vindicated his decision. Pat Cummins himself led from the front with sensational figures of 2/34 with wickets of Virat Kohli and Shreya Iyer.
India got off to a brisk start from Rohit Sharma, who scored 47 runs in 31 balls. After that India slipped to 81/3 before Virat Kohli and KL Rahul rebuilt the innings. However, they were slow in their approach in their partnership of 67 (109).
Once Kohli was gone for 54, India kept losing wickets at regular intervals. The loss of Rahul for 66 runs was a big dent to India’s innings which then trudged to 240. Australia chased it down with 7 wickets to spare and 7 overs remaining courtesy of Travis Head’s brilliant century.
We didn’t put enough runs on the board: Rohit Sharma
After the loss, Rohit Sharma reckoned India felt they could get to 270-280 when Kohli and KL Rahul were batting, but the team innings slipped off.
Rohit said: “The result has not gone our way. We were not good enough today. We tried everything but it wasn’t supposed to be. 20-30 runs more would have been good, KL and Kohli were stitching a good partnership and we were looking at 270-280 but we kept losing wickets. We didn’t put enough runs on the board.”
India hit back with the ball and had Australia 47/3 before Head and Labuschagne forged a match-winning partnership of 192 (215).
Rohit Sharma added: “When you have 240 on the board, you want to take wickets but credit to Head and Labuschagne who stitched together a big partnership and put us completely out of the game. We tried everything we could but I feel the wicket got slightly better to bat under lights. Don’t want to give that as an excuse. We knew under lights it would be slightly better to bat, but don’t want to give that as an excuse.”
