Australia defeated India by 209 runs in the final of the 2023 World Test Championship. This is Team India's second consecutive defeat in the WTC final. Earlier in 2021, New Zealand defeated India in the final. With this victory, the Australian team has become the first team to win all the ICC trophies. The Australian team has previously won the ODI World Cup in 1987, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2015, the Champions Trophy in 2006 and 2009, and the T20 World Cup in 2021.
Team India is not taking the name of Team India's ICC trophy drought for the last 10 years. India last won the Champions Trophy in 2013. Since then the team has not been able to win any ICC tournament. The Indian team performed very poorly in the final match of the World Test Championship. Team India made many mistakes in the match and the team had to bear the brunt of it. We are telling you about the culprit of Team India's defeat.
The biggest reason for the defeat of the Indian team is the captain Rohit Sharma. Cricket experts say that batting in the fourth innings is extremely difficult. Despite this, Rohit won the toss and decided to bowl first. After this, the decision not to feed Ravichandran Ashwin, the world's number one spinner, was beyond comprehension. It was criticized by everyone from Sunil Gavaskar to Sourav Ganguly. Rohit also did not rotate the bowlers properly and allowed Australia to score runs in the first innings. The result was that Travis Head and Steve Smith went on to score runs in the first innings. At the same time, in the second innings, Alex Carey and Mitchell Starc went on to play shots openly. Rohit Sharma's bat didn't even get a run. He was dismissed for 15 in the first innings and 43 in the second innings. Rohit's bat has not gone in the last five ICC knockout matches.
Team India had the highest expectations from Cheteshwar Pujara. The player is not a part of the IPL and is utilizing this time to play English county cricket. Pujara scored a lot of runs while captaining Sussex in the county. In the 2022 county season, he scored 1094 runs in eight matches. At the same time, this season he scored three centuries in four innings. Apart from this, he scored 624 runs in nine matches in the ODI Cup in England last year at an average of 89.14 and a strike rate of 111. These include two centuries and three half-centuries. However, despite all this he failed in the finals. Since January 2019, Pujara has scored runs in 38 Tests at a modest average of 29 in international cricket.
The performance of Shubman Gill, considered to be the future of the Indian team, was also disappointing. Chasing a big target, he was expected to bat well in both the innings, but it did not happen. Shubman was dismissed for 13 runs in the first innings and 18 runs in the second innings. It is also disappointing because Shubman batted well in IPL 2023 and was the top scorer of the league. In such a situation, Team India was definitely shocked due to its failure on the biggest stage of international cricket.
Rishabh Pant's injury definitely opened the doors of Team India for KS Bharat this year. However, till now he has not been able to do justice to it. He has so far scored only 129 runs in eight innings of five Tests at an average of 18.43. There is not a single half-century in it. We all have seen what Pant can do while chasing big targets. Bharat was also expected to perform in the same way, but it could not happen.
In two consecutive years, the Indian team lost in the knockouts in two ICC tournaments. India had to face defeat in the semi-finals of the 2022 T20 World Cup. At the same time, now Team India had to face defeat in the WTC final. India's coach in both these tournaments was Rahul Dravid. Now questions are being raised on them too. His call was also behind the decision to bowl first after winning the toss and not reading the ground of the oval. Not only this, while spin helped in the last few days and Nathan Lyon took four wickets in the fourth innings, Ravindra Jadeja took three wickets in the third innings, Dravid decided to bench the world's number one spinner Ashwin. Despite the poor performance, KS Bharat's continued retention in the team also comes under question. Team India has definitely suffered due to Dravid's defensive approach.
The Test started in a spectacular fashion by Team India and took three wickets of Australia in the first two and a half hours on the first day. However, after this the line length of the Indian bowlers deteriorated and they deviated from the plan. From Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj to Umesh Yadav, he kept bowling on the wrong line length and Travis Head and Steve Smith took advantage of this. Both shared a 251-run partnership on the first day and shared a total of 285 runs. From here the match turned. India had no answer to Australia's 469 in the first innings. Team India went on the backfoot in the first innings itself.
Australia had scored 469 runs in the first innings. In response, the Indian team could score 296 runs. Then Australia got a lead of 173 runs. In the second innings, Australia declared the innings by scoring 270 runs for eight wickets. Chasing the target of 444 runs, the Indian team started the chase in a grand manner. However, all the batsmen including captain Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane got out after playing bad shots. While Rohit Sharma went for the sweep shot to Lyon, which he rarely plays, Pujara went for the uppercut off the short ball. Both became victims of Australian bowlers. Kohli batted well in the second innings, initially hitting deliveries outside the off-stump, but on the fifth day he made the same mistake he has been making for the last 10 years. He sat on the ball of the fourth stump and the ball took the edge of his bat and went to Smith in the slip. At the same time, Rahane also lost his wicket by playing the wrong shot.
IPL has also been the biggest reason for the defeat of the Indian team. While on the one hand only two players (Warner, Green) of the Australian playing-11 playing the final of the World Test Championship played in the IPL, on the other hand the entire Indian team was busy playing the IPL. In such a situation, the team reached England very late and did not get a chance to prepare. Rohit, Kohli reached England just six-seven days back. In such a situation, Indian players took tournaments like WTC final lightly and they had to bear the brunt.
India not only lacked Pant, Rahul, Bumrah and Shreyas in the final, but the team also lacked a batting all-rounder. Shardul definitely scored a half-century, but when you have a player like Hardik, it hurts not to play. Hardik has been away from Test cricket since the surgery. He has not retired, but he is not playing either. In such a situation, Team India had to feed an extra pacer in the form of Umesh Yadav or Shardul. Having Hardik would have helped Team India in batting as well.
Give Your Feedback