Talking Pts: Cummins’ huge gamble in World Cup masterstroke; India’s 10-year curse laid bare

Aus Player ratings: Trav’s perfect 10 as unlikely Aussie completes World Cup miracle

India Player Ratings: Skipper’s ugly blunder swings World Cup final; X-factor’s baffling display

It was World Cup quantity six for Australia, however for former England captain Michael Vaughan, this was the perfect one of many lot.

“To beat this India team, in front of more than 100,000 Indian supporters, on a pitch meant to suit the hosts, is an extraordinary sporting achievement, especially after starting the tournament with two losses,” Vaughan wrote in a column for The Telegraph.

“This group of Australian players had the misfortune of following one of the greatest teams in history, that of the nineties and noughties. It is difficult to always be compared to legends of the past.

“By winning a World Cup in India, the hardest place to do it, they have now achieved something the greats of old never did.”

The Telegraph’s chief cricket correspondent Nick Hoult agreed with Vaughan’s stance and believes it should take one thing extremely particular from a future Australian aspect to carry a candle to their achievement in Ahmedabad.

“It is hard to think of Australians as underdogs,” Hoult mentioned.

“They were here, by a massive margin but dished out a hammering by six wickets.

“Usually Australian teams steamroll their way to a World Cup. This time they called on their legendary reserves of strength to bounce back from starting with two defeats to win nine in a row, all done on Indian pitches to boot.

“It will take some campaign in the future to be better than this one.”

Pivotal to Australia’s triumph was the management and tactical nous of Cummins.

He made the bold call to bowl first after winning the toss however that decision, together with nearly each different in-game resolution he made, proved to be a masterstroke.

Cummins was additionally Australia’s greatest with the ball as he took two wickets — together with the essential one among Virat Kohli — and shipped simply 34 runs from his 10 overs for an financial system of three.4.

The captaincy masterclass was lauded by The Times’ chief cricket correspondent Mike Atherton.

“This year, Cummins has carried the torch for the fast bowler as leader and he, above all, had a night to remember,” Atherton wrote.

“He made a bold decision to bowl at the toss, took a couple of key wickets, had a supreme night tactically with his bowling and fielding changes and finished the tournament as a winner.

“What a turnaround from the start of the competition when his leadership was under scrutiny as Australia began with two defeats, but he held his nerve when others might have imploded.”

Nasser Hussain, who captained England between 1999 and 2003, concurred.

“It was a brave decision from Cummins to bowl first at the toss,” Hussain told Sky Sports.

“A weak captain would make a decision that, if it goes wrong and you lose, it makes you look less bad. But he made a really brave decision and the right decision.

“He absolutely nailed it. He nailed everything today: field placements, bowling changes.

“Everything was spot on.”

Victory for Australia additionally fulfilled Cummins’ pre-match want having claimed “there’s nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent”.

Well, Cummins bought what precisely what he wished as Atherton described the environment throughout the Narendra Modi stadium like “a morgue” and claimed “you could hear a mouse fart” when Kohli’s wicket fell.

It was a big distinction from the vibrancy and color that engulfed the stadium from the beginning, leaving the Daily Mail’s Lawrence Booth to marvel if India had maybe gotten somewhat forward of itself.

“If there was sympathy for fans who had arrived expecting a coronation, it was temping to wonder if the world’s most powerful board had overplayed its hand, forcing through a late change of pitch for the semi-final against New Zealand, and ensuring Australia were on red alert for more skulduggery,” Booth mentioned.

“In the event, it was India who seemed spooked by the conditions, on a pitch that had been recommended for use a week earlier by the ICC’s independent consultant Andy Atkinson, but which the Australians believed had been left rough and unrolled at both ends.

“Pressure played a part, and why wouldn’t it? The Indians are only human.

“Paradoxically, perhaps, 10 wins out of 10 in the group stage and semi-final, India had constructed an aura that even they struggled to live up to.”

And Australia most actually destroyed that aura in what ESPN Cricinfo’s Andrew Miller described as a “clinical and ruthlessly passion-killing display”.

“Every man in Australia’s XI played his part in sucking the marrow from a contest that, to judge by the sea of blue in the Narendra Modi Stadium’s stands and the expect attendance of the eponymous PM himself, had been intended as a coronation,” Miller wrote.

“Instead, the closing hour of the match was greeted in stunned silence by a 92,453-strong crowd, and nothing epitomised the sense of national anticlimax quite like the trophy-lift itself, for which Cummins was left forlorn on the podium for a full 20 seconds before his team was able to join him after accepting their handshakes away from centre stage.”

Of course, India can try to precise some revenge when these two nations meet in just some days’ time in a T20 collection.

But even when India win that, it received’t maintain a candle to Australia’s World Cup achievement.