Cricket legends like Ricky Ponting, Nasser Hussain, and Harbhajan Singh felt the Ahmedabad pitch ploy ‘backfired, on the other side Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag felt the sluggish 67-run stand between KL Rahul and Virat Kohli cost India the match.

Meanwhile, another set of cricketing legends Gautam Gambhir and Wasim Akram have pointed out Rohit Sharma’s crucial moves in the final against Australia, which resulted in its defeat.

Both admitted that they were both left surprised at the move.

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“I didn’t understand why Jadeja was sent ahead of Suryakumar Yadav. Why was he demoted to No. 7? That was nowhere the right call for me,” Hindustan Times quoted Gambhir who was speaking at a panel discussion on Cricbuzz.

While Akram said, “I mean he is playing purely as a batter there. I could have understood the move if Hardik was there in the line-up.”

Gambir even questioned if the team management was at all ever confident about Suryakumar’s abilities in ODI cricket.

“Imagine if KL Rahul is batting with a certain temp with Kohli then it makes even more sense to sent Suryakumar in and ask him to play aggressive cricket, play his natural cricket because you still have Jadeja. It is very easy to say for an expert to say that Suryakumar struggled. But the player’s mindset is that if he gets out the next batters are Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Siraj and Kuldeep. However, if he knows that the next batsman in is Jadeja then he would have had a different mindset. If you were not confident in Suryakumar at No. 6 then you might as well should have picked someone else,” he said.

India Vs Australia Final:

Batting second, Pat Cummins-led Australia defeated India by 6 wickets, with 42 balls remaining, and lifted the world cup for the sixth time.

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Earlier, India gave a target of 241 runs for Australia to chase. Apart from KL Rahul (68), Virat Kohli (54) and Rohit Sharma (47), no other Indian player could cross 20 runs. And India managed to put just 240 runs on the scoreboard.

For Australia, Mitchell Starc took three wickets, while Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins picked up two wickets each. Adam Zampa and Glenn Maxwell also clinched one wicket each.

Chasing the target of 241 runs, Australia lost three early wickets, but Travis Head’s 137 runs in 120 balls led Australia lift their sixth World Cup.

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Updated: 21 Nov 2023, 10:49 PM IST