WTC Final 2023 – A Review

By Rahul Patil

Although blue easily outnumbered the green and gold at the Oval, the chants of “Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi” had the final word when Australia were crowned WTC winners for the 2021-2023 cycle. With this win Australia are now the only team in the world to have won every ICC trophy. Clearly the better side over the course of the match Australia, will now look forward to the Ashes, high on confidence and nicely warmed up.

India decided to bench 474 test wickets in the form of Ravichandran Ashwin who currently also happens to be the number one test bowler in the world. The pitch and overhead conditions were the reasons given for the decision. The fact that Australia had five left handers in their top 8 was also ignored. The overhead conditions lasted for about an hour and as it turned out, underneath the layer of green the pitch was dry. Test cricket is played over five days and India fell into the trap of picking a team for the first morning.

There are only two reasons why captains decide to bowl first after winning the toss. The positive reason is because they believe that their bowling attack is good enough to knock over the opposition cheaply in favorable bowling conditions. The negative reason is because they don’t trust their own batters to survive against the opposition bowlers. It won’t take Einstein to work out why Rohit Sharma chose to bowl first.

I know a number of cricket fans in and outside India who don’t rate Ravi Ashwin. Turning track bully they call him. Over the year’s various Indian team managements themselves have not respected Ashwin’s skill set. He is regularly dropped in overseas tests although his stats are pretty decent. The plain fact is they do not trust him to pick up wickets in unhelpful conditions. Regardless of the pitch or conditions Australia never drop Nathan Lyon do they?

A few years back during a media interaction at a book launch event Rahul Dravid was asked why he hadn’t written his own autobiography yet. Dravid said that because he is brutally honest he would end up hurting a lot of people. I genuinely hope Ashwin writes a book when he is finished with the game. There is bound to be a whole chapter on Duncan Fletcher, Ravi Shastri and Rahul Dravid along with Dhoni, Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

It’s not like India didn’t have their chances. With Australia at 76 for 3 on day one the match was very much in the balance but a 285 run partnership for the fourth wicket swung the momentum Australia’s way and in the end proved to be the difference between the two sides.

Steve Smith who according to Virat Kohli is the best test batter of this generation once again produced a classy hundred when it mattered. 8947 test runs all over the world at an average of 60.04 with 31 hundred’s is a phenomenal record considering the fact that he was first picked to play for Australia as a leg spinner who batted at number 8.

The match defying innings though came from Travis Head. 163 of South Australia’s finest. Head’s story is equally fascinating. Ear marked for greatness from a very young it took Travis Head a long time to fulfil his potential. His test debut was in 2018 but it wasn’t until his century against England in the last Ashes that Head finally sealed his place in the side. He is credited with playing Bazball before England did and no matter what the game situation is, Head always looks to take the attack to the opposition

469 in the first innings was well above par. The duke ball does a lot in English conditions but you need to put it in the right places and be patient. The line and lengths that the Indian seamers bowled in the 1^st innings look great on TV but they hardly get you wickets. To get wickets in England you have to attack the middle and off stump at a length that entices the batters to drive. Sounds easy doesn’t it? But anyone who has played the game will tell you that all bowlers have a natural length and adjusting it even by a couple of meters in different conditions is not easy at all. This is why you need to play at least a couple of practice matches before an overseas test to adjust your length but a packed cricketing schedule doesn’t allow for that any more.

A run chase of 444 in the last innings had a very poetic ring to it and at 164 for 3 at the end of day four 1.4 billion Indians slept dreaming about finally breaking the jinx of ICC tournaments. There is a reason though why a score of that magnitude has never been chased down before in test cricket. India folded in the first session of day 5 and Australia lifted the mace.

This Australian attack has too much class in it. Scott Boland is a great headache to have for the Australian selectors. With this performance I feel he has done enough to keep either Starc or Hazlewood out of the team for the first Ashes test starting this week.

India once again failing in a do or die situation. Coaches have changed, captains have changed and so have some of the personnel but they still can’t seem to find a way to win the big games. The inability of their batters to play a long innings is also noticeable. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli hardly play any first class cricket. Pujara plays county cricket and scores heaps of runs but those attacks are not in the same league as test cricket. Ajinkya Rahane seems to have found the special touch again and Rishabh Pant and Jasprit Bumrah will eventually make their way back into the team. The average age of India’s playing XI was just over 32 years. Could this defeat be the catalyst to introduce some young talent before the next WTC final comes along in two years’ time?

Enough has already been said and written about the controversial catch that Cameron Green took to get rid of Shubman Gill. I watched it live and it was one of those where 26 million Aussies thought it was out and 1.4 billion Indians though it wasn’t. With the replays that the third umpire saw there is no way that he could have been 100 percent certain that no part of the ball touched the ground before Green had complete control of it. Yet the third umpire decided it was out. Whatever happened to benefit of the doubt goes to the batter? Would it have changed the outcome of the match? Most probably not. But it did divide opinions. The worst part of the whole situation was having to listen to a bunch Australians talking about clean catches and trusting the fielders. As I typed this my train just passed the latest Tui beer advertising hoarding that said ‘Yeah right.

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