Ahmedabad: Former India international cricketer Suresh Raina said Australia Captain Pat Cummins' captaincy made the difference in the Cricket World Cup Final.
"What swung the game in Australia’s favour was Pat Cummins’ captaincy. The way he brought Glenn Maxwell in to the attack to get the wicket of Rohit Sharma with a brilliant catch from Travis Head was very smart. Adam Zampa was great too, as was Cummins himself in dismissing Virat Kohli," Raina said.
They outplayed India and were very solid in their planning, he said.
From an Indian perspective, the Cricket World Cup final was disappointing, but that’s what cricket is all about, Raina said
"Australia played better than India, you can't complain about that. It was just one bad day at the office," he said.
He said Australia won the toss and they knew that dew would be the key factor. They restricted India to 240 and chased really well, an ICC media release said.
"Another big factor was Australia’s fielding, I think they saved 30 to 40 runs. From ball one, they were saving a lot of singles and boundaries. There was Travis’s catch and some excellent work in the deep from David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne," Raina said.
"I think Cummins showed real temperament in his captaincy. He changed his bowlers knowing he could put pressure on each India batter even though they were all in such good form. His tactics made all the difference and his planning and execution was perfect," he said.
"If you look at Australia’s innings, they were 47 for three, but India couldn’t put the pressure on because they were only defending 241 and then Travis Head played the best knock of the World Cup to change the direction of the game with his positive batting," Raina said.
He said India looked very good from a bowling point of view but were left disappointed because they didn’t understand the wicket.
Raina said it was very dry and they couldn’t keep pressure on with the bat because Australia bowled a lot of short balls and deliveries into the wicket which meant India couldn’t rotate the strike. Rohit’s wicket was a turning point and there were not enough runs on the board, especially when you’re used to making totals of up to 400.
He said credit goes to Travis and Marnus, the way they played when the pressure started to come back onto Australia showed they know how to win an ICC trophy. (UNI)