WTC Final: A Loss India Will do Well to Remember

A) A horribly ill-timed attempt to play the sweep shot; B) An unnecessary attempt to lean outside of the off stump and drive.

Between the last session on Day Four and the first session on Day Five, these two instances caused two dismissals, the visual grabs of which aren’t likely to fade away from memory anytime soon.

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, the two batters who India expected to stand tall in this Test match, leave alone the second innings, will repent those moments that hurried India’s second-successive loss in a World Test Championship final.

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Those two moments are nevertheless part of a long list of mistakes India committed between June 7 and 11.

* Winning the toss and fielding first.

* Not picking R Ashwin.

* Under-bowling the lone spinner they went with, Ravindra Jadeja.

* Giving away 38 extras.

* Passages of poor captaincy in terms of fielding outside the 30-yard circle, rotation of bowlers.

* Losing the first four wickets in the first innings for just 71 runs.

* Rohit and Virat falling to ill-timed strokes.

There are others who may want to add to this list. Going ahead with KS Bharat instead of Ishan Kishan, for instance. The list can keep growing.

But no matter how many times you read it right from the beginning, the decision to win the toss and field first, without picking Ashwin in the Playing XI are the two mistakes that stand out. Towards the end of the Test, India batting in the second innings on the final day chasing a mammoth 444, the two awkward dismissals only turned the Oval a full circle for India.

It was India’s second straight unsuccessful attempt at winning the ICC World Test Championship final after having spent two two-year cycles to qualify. If that’s not hurting yet, it should.

Regardless of what the men in charge might like to say and how they’d like to put it – that it’s the game itself that matters much and not mere pursuit of titles, try telling it to the Australians who’ve only lost two of the 12 finals they’ve played in ICC tournaments since 1975.

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For a country perennially aspiring to be ‘Aussie’ in the kind of cricket they’ve wished to play, fact is India lag behind by a mile-and-a-half, or possibly more.

The Indian team walked across the field at the Oval after the presentation ceremony to wave at the fans and thank them for their support over the last five days. Not just the last five days but for years in succession – 2011, 2014, 2018, 2021-22, the 2019 World Cup and this time again, the crowds have always come, apropos the disappointment.

That has simply been for the love of Indian cricket, and they will continue to do so regardless of how many times they have to end up walking out of the Oval, shaking their heads in disappointment.

It is important to ascertain and study the anatomy of a loss in order to acknowledge that and correct it.

The Indian tail curled and wrapped up in no time once the top order fell. But it was too late already to expect them to stay after the top order had faltered and fallen to the point of no return.