Indian legends Ravi Shastri and Sanjay Manjrekar say the toss and conditions beat the hosts in the World Cup final.
Australia won the toss and elected to bowl first, running out winners by six wickets in front of a stunned Ahmedabad crowd on Sunday as the chase of 241 turned into a stroll.India struggled to get the ball away, having been put in – twice going more than an hour without a boundary in their innings – and were bowled out for the first time in the tournament.
“The Australians looked at the surface before the game started and were all very concerned. “It was a slow surface,” Shastri said.
“They made the right choice at the toss, and I thought they bowled magnificently – they used the slowness of the surface early on.
“The way they bowled to Suryakumar Yadav towards the end was brilliant as well.
“They know him so well they realised he uses pace and the pace of the ball to destroy attacks.
Manjrekar says one of the major effects of the conditions was the nullification of one of India’s key strengths – their spinners.
As a result, the middle overs overwhelmingly belonged to the Australians and the 192-run partnership in the chase between centurion Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne.
“Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja didn’t get the ball to turn, so India were beaten by conditions more than anything else really,” he said.
“It was a very smart call by Australia after winning the toss.
“India struggled to hit boundaries in the afternoon, and it was a lot easier for Australia to hit boundaries because the ball was coming onto the bat.”If there was one criticism of the performance for Shastri, it was that India could have attacked more when Australia lost early wickets.
“The only way that you could have stopped Australia was by taking wickets,” Shastri added.
“They could have had a slip in place around the time Australia were 90-3.
“In 50 overs with an asking rate of under five runs an over, it was never going to be a challenge.
