India’s 10 comfortable wins before the final hid a harsh reality of the hosts being over-reliant on at least one of their top three batsmen to get a big knock. Looks like their performance in the final was an accident waiting to happen
Rohit Sharma walks off after being dismissed against Australia in Ahmedabad yesterday. Pic/PTI
While almost everyone was on cloud nine, appreciating Team India’s batting highs throughout this World Cup, this cloudy vision hid an important fact that was laid bare in Sunday’s World Cup final against Australia.
In each of India’s 10 victories, at least one player from their top three batsmen—Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan/Shubman Gill or Virat Kohli—scored big. There was no game where all three failed, so even fewer would have noticed that there is little that can be done to salvage the situation for Team India if that happens, like it did in the final.
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Kohli’s 85 in WC opener
In the first match against Australia, while Rohit and Ishan made ducks, Virat scored 85. Against Afghanistan, Rohit got 131, while Ishan got 47 and Virat made 55. In the Pakistan clash, Rohit made 86 while Shubman and Virat scored 16 each. Against Bangladesh, Kohli got a century (103) while Rohit made 48 and Gill 53. Against New Zealand, Kohli scored 95 while Rohit got 46 and Gill 26.
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Rohit then made 87 against defending champions England while Gill (9) and Kohli (0) couldn’t do much. The Sri Lanka match saw Gill score 92 and Kohli get 88 while Rohit only managed four. Kohli (101) thereafter got a century against South Africa while Rohit made 40 and Gill got 23. In the last league match against the Netherlands all three got half centuries (Rohit 61, Gill 51, Kohli 51). The semi-final against NZ, saw Kohli (117) notch up another fine ton while Gill made 80 and Rohit 47.
Gill falls to Starc
On Sunday however, Gill (4) played a nothing shot against Mitchell Starc to give a simple catch to Adam Zampa. Rohit (47) then got out, unnecessarily playing an aggressive shot. And an under-pressure Kohli (54) shockingly played a Pat Cummins short delivery onto his stumps. The consequence: The remaining eight players could only add a further 135 runs to the team total!
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