ESPNcricinfo
India may be where the heart of the game now resides, but the coolest Head in cricket has once again been shown to be Australian. Travis Head, to be precise, who set up his side’s record-extending sixth World Cup victory with a triumphantly paced 137 from 120 balls in Ahmedabad, but whose most significant contribution arguably came some six-and-a-half hours beforehand, with one of the most match-turning catches in ODI history.
What might have been for these two teams had Head not held onto a steepling, sprawling take, running backwards into the covers to saw off India’s captain, Rohit Sharma, in his prime? Australia’s eventual target of 241 would have been significantly higher, no doubt, and to judge by the ferocity with which India’s new-ball bowlers clawed at their opponents in the powerplay – with Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami inevitably to the fore – there would have been all the more opportunities for their chase to have toppled off its tightrope.
Instead, Head held on, and in so doing, he applied a handbrake to a runaway innings that would never be fully released. On Rohit’s watch, India had racked up 10 fours and three sixes in blazing along to 80 for 2 in the first powerplay. Once he’d gone, India mustered just four more fours, and 160 more runs, across the next 40 overs. It meant they were unable to post a total big enough to mitigate against the inevitable onset of dew – the primary reason why Pat Cummins had risked letting Rohit and Co. set the agenda in the first place.
And so Australia’s victory came at a canter in the end, with six wickets standing and a huge 42 balls unused – a margin that would have been greater still but for Head’s dismissal to the penultimate ball of the chase. Undeterred, Glenn Maxwell pulled his first ball for two to take his side through to a victory target which – as fate would have it – was the exact total that England and New Zealand had been unable to split by conventional means four years ago.
Summarized scores: Australia 241 for 4 (Head 137, Labuschagne 58*, Bumrah 2-43) beat India 240 (Rahul 66, Kohli 54, Starc 3-55, Cummins 2-34, Hazlewood 2-60) by six wickets
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It is understood that a 23 year old man in Bengal took his own life after India lost the finals and a 32 year old software engineer in Tirupati died of a heart attack after the India loss.