The highly-anticipated World Test Championship (WTC) final ended in a heartbreak for Indian fans as the Australian team registered a mammoth 209-run win over India at the Oval in London on Sunday. Australia swiftly asserted their dominance on the fifth day of play while defending a target of 280 runs. Their control was promptly reinforced as pacer Scott Boland dismissed Indian star Virat Kohli early on in the day’s proceedings.
Following the dismissal of Kohli, the entire Indian squad struggled and was ultimately bundled out for 234 as they found it difficult to cope with the relentless assault unleashed by the Australian bowlers. After the devastating defeat, Indian captain Rohit Sharma shared his perspective on the game, stating that India had been trailing throughout all four days of play, and attributed their loss to a failure in executing their game plan effectively.
Rohit mentioned that after the first session of play, the team believed they had a good opportunity to dismiss the Australian batters quickly but Steve Smith and Travis Head, changed the game. He acknowledged that India fell short in implementing their game plan as intended and found themselves 160-170 runs behind the Australian total in the first innings.
“After the first session we thought we have a good chance of getting them out quickly, but two of their batters- Steve Smith and Travis Head, did well. We were slightly away from our plans, we did not execute what we had on that pitch which had a lot of assistance. We failed to do that. We were 160-170 runs behind after 1st inn. Wanted to get them out asap in 2nd innings,” said Rohit in the post-match press conference.
“One of the reasons for us to consider batting last was because we thought the wicket won’t change much and will keep getting better. We talked a lot about how we wanted to bowl and bat, but we didn’t actually do that. what to do what not to do, we were behind in the game all four days,” he added.
