Tuesday 19 / November / 2024
19th November is a day no Indian will forget even if he did not like cricket. 1.4 billion Indians dreams and many more staying around the world felt some country called Down Under shattered by beating India in their home world cup which had a stamp of India as winners written on it, but it had to be erased and written at the last moment.
Just to refresh India had bossed the entire world cup winning all their league games comfortably and then eased past New Zealand in the semifinals to bump across Australia in the finals whom they had beaten soundly in their first league game.
The stage was set with 120,000 people gathered at the Narendra Modi Stadium with the Prime Minister himself present at the stadium too to witness the atmosphere of India winning at home for the second time after 2011. But it was not to be.
There were many defining moments in the final, first the all-important toss which Pat Cummins won and ensured that he did not make the same mistake of batting first as he had done in the first game at Chennai and inserted India in.
Then when Rohit was batting, who cared for the toss as he was setting the tone for a big India total but came a bloke named Travis head who took the catch of his life to dismiss the Indian captain. Virat Kohli was at its best in the whole tournament and looked like he will take India to a safe total, but skipper Pat Cummins had other ideas.
He was bowling with 4/5 field on the side like an off spinner not giving an inch to free their arms and strangled the free-flowing Indian batsman who struggled to come to the pace of the slow wicket.
The fans and the players still believed that their high-flying bowlers would defend the 240 total but once again it was Travis head who took the attack to the Indian bowlers surviving the early burst of Bumrah and Shami.
And in the end Australia won with plenty to spare. So, what was it that Australia did to stop the Indian juggernaut? Australia did what Australia are known to do at the big stage and no wonder they are six times world Champions of the ODI format.
365 days have passed for this loss, but I dare say it’s still hard to conjure the fact that India were so near yet so far.
