CWC23: India's dream run turns nightmare as Australia grab sixth ODI World Cup title

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the edges and sledges cricket podcast. We

[00:00:14] have a full house today. I'm your host Ashwin, Barons in Singapore, DJs in London. I don't

[00:00:20] even know how to start this episode. To be honest, for our listeners, we normally chat

[00:00:23] a little bit between the three of us for about was, I mean, the net 100 that we ended up on was. There's always hope as an Indian fan and I think you can clearly divide the reactions over three generation, that's it. So there's a Gavaskar generation which basically lost everything and is super cynical and

[00:03:02] everything is fixed.

[00:03:04] Then there's a such a generation which is kind of nice. But it makes us the agony uncles of the cricketing world a little bit, doesn't it? So it feels different this time because it was 10 on the bounce, it was complete domination. It was all set up for it.

[00:04:20] It was at home.

[00:04:21] It was 120,000 people.

[00:04:22] Supposedly, it was only 90 that showed up.

[00:04:26] I don't know why. I think it's important, important we get here. Varun, let me just ask you then, right? How do you, obviously, lifting the trophy is important? Obviously this, right? But if you, somebody could have told you six and a half weeks ago, and by the way, so I'll go one more tangent. A lot of people who are upset at people who didn't watch the six and a half week campaign, right? And that's fair, we need those feds. They tune in for the final.

[00:05:41] They say, what is this crap?

[00:05:42] They couldn't kind of lift the trophy again, and it's fine.

[00:05:44] For those of us who watched all 10 games,

[00:05:46] and then the final, it feels different Yeah, but I think I was just, was it for instance, we didn't think it was real. No, Australia was for it. Yeah. So I think the biggest challenge is one doesn't know what to criticize, one doesn't know what to change, one doesn't know where it went wrong. And I think that's where we haven't said this yet, but you've got to give credit to Australia.

[00:07:01] Like you just have to know that Australia shows up,

[00:07:07] they know how to win. It was a team of undisputed grades like Ricky Ponting, Damien Martin, when you get beaten by them, you get it, right? You hidden Gilchrist, you get it. Here, you had the World Test Championship. Look at what Australia have won in the last 10 years, 2015 World Cup.

[00:08:20] 2015 World Cup, they the T20 World Cup. They've now got the ODI World Cup. This is a golden generation of Australian cricketers. Yeah, I mean, you kind of disagree with that. As you think about it, and you list the grades, and that's sort of arguably the difference that Australia brought this campaign is that

[00:09:40] nobody's other than worn, and nobody's really on the top five or six run scorers. But everybody

[00:09:44] showed up when they needed to, Maxwell bided in the contest. No, no, it is a fair result. Let me just stop you there. It is a fair result. No, I mean, the argument is more like if you've won 10 games and they've won nine and

[00:11:03] is there more merit? You know, we've talked about this a time. And that's what DJ is alluding to by saying, they beat the two teams that beat them in the set. And they're first to give them one. Everything else. And so everything. And they struggle. But what I'm saying is they found a way to dig deep. They find a way to recover from situations. And they just kept getting better. Pat come and said, we haven't played our best day of cricket

[00:12:23] the day before the five work.

[00:12:24] Yeah.

[00:12:26] And they did.

[00:12:27] And they had a perfect day on the final.

[00:12:28] Let's not forget that. Sarah Aj and sticking to the 11 versus against, you know, in hindsight, you think Travis had left the opener against Ash may have struggled more, but it's easy to do that in hindsight. Varun, what's your thoughts on the toss in the team? Yes, I didn't think the toss was going to be so important till like, till we got to like 15, 20

[00:13:40] overs. And that's when it hit me that this toss before I come to DJ and come to the banding, Siraj has been a reasonable threat all through the storm. He's had a couple of bad games, but as a new ball baller, he has only been a new baller. Yeah. Right. Rohit made the choice and you can sit here and say Warner got out on Rohit's first legal,

[00:15:04] Sammy's first legal delivery up to the wide. But Rohit made swing that we saw. Bumra couldn't control it, Shami couldn't control it at times. That was the moment for Siraj to step up and shine and I think tactically it was a mistake. We can look back now and we know it's probably a mistake. It felt a little bit desperate at the time as well. Shami has been most effective with the slightly older ball

[00:16:22] where there's a little bit less seam, upright approach. He just evolved to become like a savant. A lot of people said like such an icy and savant. It is much more like savant.

[00:17:40] For me, when Gail got out, right,

[00:17:42] stock balls, that ball, it doesn't,

[00:17:45] like it feels like it takes forever to get to him.

[00:17:47] And he still, it's the same argument you could have later on which you have, which was being raised by the commentators. Why aren't we attacking the part-timers more? Rohit's just going after the, he knows we need to get 300 plus to keep this, to make

[00:19:01] this game safe.

[00:19:02] And for him, the best chance of doing that is to He knows the importance of the cat, the ball is probably swirling because it's off a spinner as well. And that was the game changer because if Rohit stuck around for another 15 overs, that's the game done. Rohit's got more than 100, goalie settles in, higher places, his knock, it's a different

[00:20:20] vibe altogether, Roshwina. I mean, a lot of criticism that he didn't attack the part-time is it? What was your read as a situation during this partnership? And now. So I think there was a phase where the way they were playing, it was needed. And I can't recall exactly which over. Let's say that you said they're bad for about 20 overs, right?

[00:21:40] Yeah, 18 points.

[00:21:41] Yeah. So I would say about 9 overs, 10 overs, 11, I, the consolidated, and the difference by the way, this is a tetra, but what makes Virat the great that he is, is that even on a slow bucket, even on top condition, he gets that freaking single, he can get it. Rahul's struggle was not that he was batting badly. Now I don't care that he didn't get a boundary for 90 balls. You have to get that sick off. And I'll be able to do that.

[00:23:00] And it's totally, it's like,

[00:23:01] it only went at a run a ball throughout that partnership.

[00:23:03] I don't know what the breakup is,

[00:23:04] but I'm pretty sure that he went at a run a ball

[00:23:07] or just under throughout that partnership. Play like somebody who does not know how to back with tailenders and we can talk separately is now doesn't feel like the time. For me to layer on the fact that i said i don't think he belongs in the idea said you guys make fun of me for that when he plays well once every eight innings i don't think he's an audio player. But he very clearly sure i don't know how to bad with tailenders right repeatedly first ball single last again with cool deep last ball he let cool the biggest single he just.

[00:25:26] the strike at that point, I don't know whether we would have got to do what would have happened. The issue with it was when he had to go, he couldn't switch gears. He just couldn't get the ball

[00:25:33] off the square. It seemed like he only had that one shot behind. And this is what I talked about.

[00:25:37] And the genius. Did you see the field placement for him?

[00:25:41] Yeah, when he went off the base seven. Unless you're average. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know if that's true. And I don't know if that's, I don't know if that makes you good enough to play for one of the best sides in the world, right? So. Yeah. So you need a finisher, right? And that's what we lacked. We didn't have a finisher.

[00:27:00] Yeah. T20 great.

[00:27:02] Buddy bats up the order there.

[00:27:03] So I want to ask,

[00:27:05] we can, let's quickly talk the bowling innings of our England and Pakistan losses in the last four years, I would say, where we've lost by like 10 wickets. And when they exactly or I shouldn't have said that when they got to like 130, 140, the body language was exactly the same. And I was just like, guys, come on, you've got three wickets, the pitch is not that easy.

[00:28:20] You can fight.

[00:28:21] Like I know this is, I know this game is a bit out of reach,

[00:28:24] but you've got to fight.

[00:28:25] And it was the same body language

[00:28:27] when we lost by 10 wickets. some home and all that stuff. DJ, unbelievable from Travis head full credit, we'll save, he's gotten all the appreciation. Ugly but effective, I think we should say. It wasn't like the basically believing in any of the bloody effective man. Yeah, I mean, bloody. Yeah, left handed openers, left handed Aussie openers are defeating India, it's just a tale

[00:29:40] we're all too familiar with. Let's, let me ask you, I have to ask this and I apologize

[00:29:45] to any of our listeners for who this is contentious, but I have to ask you about the crowd. silence was deafening right yeah at times it was deafening it was made up to say that who did Cummins and he said it you know there was 120 000 people thankfully they weren't too loud yeah and they didn't upload Travis heads 100 which i thought was a bit yeah i mean even

[00:31:00] when we were being thrashed at the one kday uh Pavar I think he was was it in in to the end three or two on seven where he just didn't

[00:32:20] leave the stage and the whole idea he had to move on the World Cup if this was a BTM or a Mastercard trophy or whatever? You've got a front eight run, Genova. Did we, did we bottle it with the bat? Yeah, I mean, I think we did. Yeah, I think everything we were worried about, about having the short, when you asked at the previous episode, who's going to house the way we lose this match? And what did I say? I said, Travis had. That's unbelievable. Right? That's the only way. I knew it. Warner was going to get out to show me. We knew that the rest of the guys hadn't enlisted up.

[00:35:00] The only way we were going to lose this match was Travis had.

[00:35:03] And it happened.

[00:35:03] And yes, start getting all that stuff.

[00:35:05] All right.

[00:35:06] So we've got it out of our system right now. Like they haven't won, doesn't mean you're not proud of them. It just... So yeah, yeah, yeah, but we should talk about what's coming as before the big guns. So the question is where do we go from here? For right. And what did you think about it? 2027 ODI World Cup. Rohit will be 40 years old. Virat will be 39. Virat is 39 could be fitter than most of us at 21.

[00:36:22] So maybe that's a different question.

[00:36:23] But Rohit is not.

[00:36:24] Like he would kill his one.

[00:36:25] He would kill his one.

[00:36:26] The first by was Rohya, right? But you're worried that you may not even get through a bilateral series. Yeah. So I think, I think they're going to have, and I do think Jill is next, but next to the, with a two year as in next after the war. Yeah, exactly. So you need a two year stop gap test. There is no change.

[00:37:40] I think Pandya or, yeah, so this is what a lot of people are saying.

[00:37:43] Rahul, right?

[00:37:44] Rahul has not done anything wrong.

[00:38:46] one game. So this team has also been through a lot from day one and they came out which is why we should be proud. No, Rishapan.

[00:38:48] Yeah, Rishapan, I don't know if you would have played in audio, but yes. They went through a lot. Rahul was injured this whole year.

[00:38:56] Aya was injured this whole year. They both came good. And the can you imagine we can't even think of names like Jason Cryger. I don't know, but they have played in a world cup.

[00:41:24] I can imagine where I'm just saying I'm done with white ball cricket. I just, I don't need.

[00:41:26] What can you do?

[00:41:27] You score the most number of runs.

[00:41:29] 50 ODI 100s.

[00:41:32] I think, Sir, Coley will, I think, Rohit, so I was looking up this morning, what Rohit's

[00:41:37] birthday is to find out how old he will be in 2027.

[00:41:40] Because it is heartbreaking to see one of the ODIippant like he was in that World Cup semi-final. There will be real testing questions that will be asked of him in Australia, South Africa, and other bouncing tracks. Where else are we going to come up short? Gil, I think it's going to be in that team. I was going to say that you can keep going on the list.

[00:43:02] Shami 37 is probably not going to make it.

[00:43:04] Jadayja 38 might from a fitness Shrathar Dharkar. Yeah. Yeah. All right. It's been a lot.

[00:44:20] It's been a lot that back.

[00:44:21] We can talk about a million different things.

[00:44:23] DJ, you have something to do.

[00:44:25] Drop it.

[00:44:26] Yeah, where did Shrathar go from here? This is not a team that lacks in talent. This is not a team that lacks in skill and resource. The thing that we miss is that killer instinct that's stepping up to the plate at the last which gets you to the winner's podium. I wouldn't say it's a winning mentality.

[00:45:40] I don't know. Maybe we just need a corporate CEO

[00:45:42] to come in and streamline everything.

[00:45:44] Maybe that doesn't work in Ford.

[00:45:45] But I don't know, there's a lot, there's a lot to unpack like we said, right? It's been, it's been both fun and a little more painful to be honest, reliving this video. Usually, usually after a lot, it's cathartic to relive it with you. I think because this wasn't such a crashing blow and we didn't get to bitch and moan about specific performances and specific people and I'm firing and this and that, it made it harder, right?

[00:47:00] Like, I mean, we didn't, we didn't.

[00:47:02] There was a lot, we lost because they were the better team on the day.

[00:47:05] So I mean, what do you, what's the stuff to say? Anti-flour. So Justin didn't win anything under Justin Langer, right? They got an Amazon Prime Video contract I think. Yeah, that they won. But they won that. I don't think anyone's bidding for that. They won everyone's heart. No, but it's amazing how lost everybody's heart is under like the world. Yeah, they lost every effect when Langer left like Pat Kaviz was like a big middle finger

[00:48:23] to all the ex-cure.

[00:48:25] So all like the way you stood for youralker, fourth was Sanid's Mavericks. I don't know why I have the responsibility of reading out all these demons. In fifth place like Varun totally agrees. The DJ does. DJ and I think both, due to the translation for our non-Hindi speakers, is you and your team have won people's hearts, and that is bigger than a World Cup. I would have mute Varun's lightsaber, he can't say anything to respond to that. This has been fun. Guys, six and a half week World Cup. It's been fun.

[00:51:00] It's been painful.

[00:51:01] It's been exciting.

[00:51:02] There's been hope and optimism.

[00:51:04] There's been, you know, small spurts of depression.