The last day of the World Test Championship 2023 final is expected to be exciting. After four days of high-quality cricket, India and Australia face off for the Mace on the fifth and final day.
India needs 280 more runs to win the final and their first World Tour Championship. Australia, on the other hand, has to pick 7 more wickets to win their first-ever WTC title.
Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane and Ravindra Jadeja are the only players standing between Australia’s victory and India’s defeat.
On Day 5, Kohli (44) and Rahane (20) will resume India’s innings from 164 for 3. All eyes will be on the greatest chase master Virat Kohli to see if he can pull off another chase which looks daunting.
India in a jinx:
Throughout the last decade in the last 8 ICC tournaments, India has lost to Sri Lanka, Australia, West Indies, Pakistan, New Zealand and England in the semifinals and finals.
All the losses came in the high-voltage nerve-wracking matches where the pressure is intense. To be precise, the knockout matches like the semi-finals and finals seem to trouble them the most.
India has lost each of their last seven knockout matches over the last decade. In fact, the losses have come against 6 different opponents. Especially, the batting unit is failing miserably in crunch situations and collapsing repeatedly in a crucial do-or-die game.
| 2014 | T20 WORLD CUP | RUNNER UP |
| 2015 | WORLD CUP | SEMIFINALISTS |
| 2016 | T20 WORLD CUP | SEMI FINALISTS |
| 2017 | CHAMPIONS TROPHY | RUNNER UP |
| 2019 | WORLD CUP | SEMIFINALISTS |
| 2021 | T20 WORLD CUP | GROUP STAGES |
| 2021 | WORLD TEST CHAMPIONSHIP | RUNNER UP |
| 2022 | T20 WORLD CUP | SEMIFINALISTS |
| 2023 | WORLD TEST CHAMPIONSHIP | TBA |
Battle of words
Legendary Australian opener Matthew Hayden believes that team India’s winless run in ICC events is more of a ‘mindset’ issue.
“It’s certainly not a question of skill. So, it has to be a question of just the opportunity and the mindset going in. I mean, cricket is life here, it is the DNA of sport and has no other competitors. In Australia I could walk down the street and largely be unrecognised, especially with this terrible beard and hat on (laughs). But it’s also got great competitive sports besides cricket. Rugby, football, our watersports, surfing, outdoor sports, here in India it’s very insular and there’s a lot of pressure,” Hayden told PTI.
Rahul Dravid however defended his soldiers and denied that Team India is under pressure of winning any ICC trophies. “Not at all, we don’t feel any pressure in terms of trying to win an ICC trophy. Of course, it would be nice to do it. Nice to be able to win an ICC tournament,” Rahul said.
But in the context of things, Rahul said that it was the culmination of 2 years of work and a lot of success that gets them there.
“There are a lot of positives to take from that, see where you stand in the table, winning series in Australia, drawing series here. Being very competitive, this team has played in the world over in the last 5-6 years. Those are things that will never change, just because, you don’t have an ICC trophy. That’s really the bigger picture,” said the head coach of Team India.
Chokers
On multiple occasions (2014 WC, 2015 WC, 2017 CT, 2019 WC, 2021 WTC) they have failed to deliver. Mitchell Starc, Trent Bolt, Mohammed Amir and Kyle Jamieson were the potent weapons that destroyed the famed batting line up of India.
This has been the scenario which has remained constant since their last victorious campaign of any ICC event which was the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
However, since then, Team India has been below par in all the ICC tournaments across formats.
Sadly, for the fanatics of the Indian cricket team, the pattern is highly disappointing. They have been playing fantastic cricket throughout the group stages however crumbling and choking under pressure. This was the case in South Africa since we grew up watching cricket.
There have been multiple changes in the management where we have witnessed the sacking of the coaches and the captains. Still, the results remained the same.
“Whether it’s me or someone else, even the guys before, their role was to take Indian cricket forward and win as many games, as many championships as possible. For me also, it will be the same. I want to win games, win championships. That is what you play for, It will be nice if I can win one or two championships when I decide to move on from this job,” captain Rohit Sharma said when asked about India winning an ICC Trophy.
Hopefully this time in the WTC final, under the leadership group headed by Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma, Team India can break the jinx and bring that elusive ICC trophy back to the nation where “Cricket is a religion”.
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