Save articles for later
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.
Key points
- It was widely expected that whoever won the toss in the World Cup final would choose to bat first.
- Australian captain Pat Cummins tipped that theory on its head by opting to bowl, and it proved a masterstroke as Australia beat the home side India by six wickets.
- It has since emerged that Australia’s in-house analysts poured over data the night before the game, at Cummins’ request, to help inform the decision he would make should he win the toss.
- The team also drew inspiration from the Simon and Garfunkel song The Sound of Silence as they plotted to silence India’s raucous home crowd.
The night before Australia’s male cricketers stepped into the cauldron of Narendra Modi Stadium for the World Cup final, two critical meetings took place. One involved hard data, the other a Simon and Garfunkel song.
One strengthened Pat Cummins’ conviction that if he won the toss, he should send India in; the other helped give the Australians the strength to conjure a World Cup win for the ages.
Australian captain Pat Cummins and his teammates relished the sounds of silence at Narendra Modi Stadium, where they won the World Cup final on Sunday.Credit: Getty Images
The two meetings are recounted by in a podcast by commentator Mark Howard, who was invited into the dressing room after the final on Sunday night to record interviews for his Howie Games World Cup Tour Diaries podcast. Amid the celebrations, he was told that Cummins and coach Andrew McDonald asked the team’s analytics chief to try to convince them why they should ignore their instinct to bowl first.
In their team meeting on the eve of the final, the Australians listened to the calming Simon and Garfunkel song, Sounds of Silence, to help them prepare for, and ultimately deal with, the sea of blue shirts that awaited them in the crowd.
“Sounds of Silence was a small part of a team meeting presentation,” a team spokesman confirmed on Tuesday.
One verse goes: “And in the naked light I saw 10,000 people, maybe more, people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening, people writing songs that voices never share, no one dared, disturb the sound of silence.”
Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon in their hey day. Their song, the Sound of Silence provided unlikely inspiration for the Australian one-day international cricket team in India on Sunday.Credit: Hulton Archive
The crowd of more than 90,000 was rendered silent first when Cummins removed Indian hero Virat Kohli, who appeared stunned to have knocked a short ball onto his stumps, and later as Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne combined for a century stand that guided the visitors towards victory.
Cummins was delighted with how his team had taken the crowd out of the game.
“You knew you were walking into something pretty special. And then to walk out for the toss and just see 130,000 blue Indian shirts; it’s an experience you’ll never forget,” he said at the post-match press conference.
“[It was an] awesome day, and the good thing was they weren’t too noisy for most of it.”
Pat Cummins silences the crowd at Narendra Modi Stadium by bowling Virat Kohli in the World Cup final.Credit: AP
Cummins’ bold call to send India in was part of a masterclass in captaincy, his instincts backed up by detailed information provided by the team’s boffins about past results, dew patterns and even the composition of the soil in Ahmedabad.
“Andrew and Pat did seek detailed info on the bowling first statistics of the ground from team stats man Tom Body,” the CA spokesman confirmed.
Star quicks Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood – and Cummins himself – backed up the decision to bowl first with excellent spells.
Indian captain Rohit Sharma said at the coin toss he would have batted first if he had won the toss.
Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting, whose decision to bowl first in the 2005 Ashes Edgbaston Test famously backfired, said Cummins had made a brave call.
“I mean, any captain deciding to bowl first at the toss; that’s a gutsy, courageous move,” Ponting told Sky Sports.
“Australia felt that if they could bowl well on that dry wicket early on and restrict India, batting was going to get easier in the second innings – but we all know if you get that call wrong and you lose the game, that’s a huge decision to make for a relatively young captain.”
Former Victorian captain Darren Berry conceded he was wrong to suggest Cummins would resign from the captaincy because of his tactics during the fourth Ashes Test earlier this year. Australia drew the series 2-2 and retained the urn.
“Huge triumph for the Australian team in the boiling cauldron of India. I was critical of skipper Cummins[’] tactics during the Ashes series & sceptical of his tenure. I was wrong. Last night was his crowning glory as captain. Credit to all involved, this is a monumental victory,” Berry said on social media.
David Warner, who will miss the forthcoming T20 series in India and will retirement from Test cricket after the coming home summer, took to social media to thank all involved with the tournament.
“Chuffed to walk away as winners and 6 times champions. Our whole team should be extremely proud,” the 37-year-old opener wrote.
Then came the kicker: “Thanks again everyone, see you in 2027,” he wrote, alluding to Australia’s world title defence in four years.
Warner has been replaced in the T20 squad by Aaron Hardie.
Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
Most Viewed in Sport
From our partners
Source: Read Full Article