image source, YEARS
- Author, Vidhanshu Kumar
- designation, for bbc hindi
Australia won an easy six-wicket victory over India in the final of the World Cup 2023 played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Batting first, the Indian team was all out at an average score of 240, which was at least 30-40 runs away from the score on this pitch.
In reply, India quickly took the first three wickets, but then with the help of Travis Head’s brilliant century and his 192-run partnership with Labuschagne, Australia won the match by 6 wickets and captured the World Cup for the record sixth time.
Although the Indian team was unable to win the cup once again after 2011, Rohit Sharma’s team broke some records in its journey to the final and achieved some new milestones, which they had been searching for for years.
Record of victory in 10 consecutive matches
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By defeating Australia in its first match in this World Cup, the Indian team started a wonderful journey of victory, which ended in the finals only at the hands of Australia.
During this period, the Indian team achieved 10 consecutive wins, which was a new record for India’s most consecutive wins in any one ICC World Cup.
Earlier in 2003 and 2015, the Indian team had achieved eight consecutive victories. However, the record of maximum 11 wins in any one tournament is in the name of Australia, which had achieved this feat in 2003 and 2007.
In the journey of Indian victory in the World Cup 2023, one more thing made everyone a fan of the Indian team, that was the margin of victory.
The Indian team was not only winning, but was winning with huge margins and was also breaking the morale of the opposition teams badly.
In the first match, India defeated Australia by six wickets, then in the second match India defeated Afghanistan by eight wickets.
India won its third match from Pakistan by seven wickets and ended the match in the 31st over itself.
After this, India won against Bangladesh by seven wickets. The closest match was with New Zealand, which India also won by 4 wickets.
Indian batting faltered against England, but the bowlers made India win this match by 100 runs.
After that India got two biggest wins of the tournament. India bowled out Sri Lanka for only 55 runs and won the match by 302 runs.
At the same time, in-form South Africa also lost the match to India by 243 runs. In its last league match, India defeated Netherlands by 160 runs and then in the semi-finals also achieved a big victory over New Zealand by 70 runs.
Although Australia became the world champion, no one had any doubt that India was the strongest team in this World Cup. And
fab five in bowling
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Indian bowler Mohammed Shami
The bowling of the team played a great role in the success of the Indian team. There was a time when the batting of the Indian team was known as the Fab Five.
At that time, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag used to play together in the Indian team. They are also considered to be India’s strongest batting line up.
In this World Cup too, the Fab Five were once again discussed, but these Fab Five were not batsmen but 5 exceptional bowlers.
Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj emerged as the uncrowned kings of the most dangerous pace and seam attacks in this World Cup. At the same time, the pair of Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav emerged as the most dangerous spin bowlers.
Former England cricketer Nasir Hussain called them the Fab Five while Ricky Ponting called them the most dangerous bowling attack of India of all time.
In this tournament, Shami took maximum 24 wickets, Bumrah took 20, Jadeja took 16, Kuldeep Yadav took 15 and Siraj took 14 wickets.
Won back the crown of world class batting
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Indian batsmen have been counted among the top batsmen in the world for a long time.
In this World Cup, India’s Shubman Gill overtook Pakistan’s Babar Azam and achieved the first position in the ICC ODI rankings.
At the same time, Virat Kohli made a record along with many records, which seems impossible to break.
Kohli scored 50 centuries in ODIs, leaving behind his idol Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49 centuries.
He made this record in the semi-final match against New Zealand in front of players like Sachin Tendulkar and David Beckham in a packed stadium in Mumbai.
After Kohli and Sachin, Rohit Sharma is at third place in this list with 31 centuries.
In the top five, retired Ricky Ponting and Sanath Jayasuriya are at fourth and fifth position.
This record of Kohli will last for a long time and may never be broken, just as T20 cricket has overtaken ODI.
Solved problem number four
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Shreyas Iyer
The Indian team solved its years-long problem in the World Cup.
After the retirement of Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina, the Indian team could not find any successful batsman at number four and this problem continued to plague the Indian team for almost 10 years.
India tried many batsmen like Manish Pandey, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati Rayudu on this number but no one could settle on this number.
But in this World Cup, Shreyas Iyer made number four his own by batting brilliantly.
Along with Virat Kohli, he made the Indian innings difficult many times, while along with KL Rahul, he took the team’s score to new heights by delivering powerful blows in the last overs.
No one doubted Shreyas Iyer’s talent, but in this World Cup he also showed his strong mentality.
Similarly, in this tournament, India also gave a chance to the world’s best player at number five.
In this tournament, KL Rahul was seen playing for India at number five.
Both players gave an example of ability in this position.
On one hand, he was seen playing hard in difficult times, while on the other hand, he hit big shots whenever he got the chance and also completed the fastest century for India in the World Cup.
Tremendous comeback after injury
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Indian bowler Jasprit Bumrah
Before this World Cup, the Indian team was struggling with serious injury problems.
Bowling attack leader Jasprit Bumrah was out of the team for a long time, while players like Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul were also in and out of the team due to surgery or recovery from injury.
Despite not being completely fit, the Indian management expressed full confidence in them and all these players worked hard and returned to the Indian team just before the World Cup.
And not only did they come back, but all three of them performed brilliantly and proved the faith of the team management right.
Mohammed Shami showed his magic
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At the beginning of this World Cup, fast bowler Mohammed Shami was not included in the eleven of the Indian team.
The team management had given priority to Shardul Thakur in his place.
But when Mohammed Shami got a chance, he surprised everyone by taking five wickets in the very first match.
After this, Shami bowled brilliantly in every match. He took seven wickets in the semi-final match against New Zealand.
If seen, this World Cup became memorable for Mohammed Shami.
India played a total of 11 matches in this World Cup and Shami played only seven. But Shami took 20 wickets in these seven matches.
Record in terms of audience
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In this World Cup, spectators came to the field in large numbers and media broadcasters also achieved record numbers.
During the final match on digital broadcaster Hotstar, 5.9 crore people were watching the match simultaneously, which is a record.
In the final played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, more than 1,00,000 spectators came to watch the match, which broke the record of nearly 90,000 spectators of the Melbourne final in 2015.
These record numbers only reflect the popularity of the Indian team.
After the final match, disappointed captain Rohit Sharma said, “The result did not go in our favor but I am proud of the kind of cricket we played throughout the tournament.”
Soon BCCI will ask for the tournament report from team coach Rahul Dravid and once again the debate will start on the reasons for not winning the final.
The Indian team will have to forget the negativity and make a new beginning keeping in mind the successes and failures of this tournament.
