A tough fight from both sides and a win to remember for the ages for the Indian contingent. They kick off their World Cup campaign with a surreal victory, turning the tide from a tricky position. This would certainly boost the morale of the team as a unit. On the contrary, Australia will have to reassemble and bounce back from their next match. Losing just one game out of the nine is just okay for now.
So, that is it folks from this space. This is Arijit Kundu singing off along with co-commentators, AkshayaKrishna Polya, Akshay Bhide, and Sidharth Gulati. Shoutout to Zeeshan Naiyer who was the scorer/analyst for this game. Cricket fans across the globe, grab some butter chicken and Mangalore masala dosa😉, eat, sleep stick to this space for the World Cup (and other cricketing actions), and repeat.
Rohit Sharma (India Captain): "Yeah, pretty exciting. Good feeling to come on top. At the start of the tournament, it was very good to win a game.
Right from the start, we did play well. We do take a lot of pride in the fielding. We did well today as well with the fielding despite the conditions being tough with a lot of heat.
The bowlers did well, we knew there was a bit of help for the bowlers. Seamers did reverse. Spinners also had good assistance, and they did well to exploit it.
I was nervous when we were 3/2, and why not? Because you never want to start an innings like that, especially when you chase such a target.
Credit goes to Australia, but yeah, we did play a few loose shots. Then, Virat and KL Rahul batted brilliantly, and the partnership took us safely to the end. Hats off to them. A match-winning partnership.
Adapting to the respective conditions is a bigger challenge as we will play on different surfaces and conditions. We may have to change our combinations and the team is ready for it.
The crowd in Chennai was fantastic. They love good cricket. And we, too, provide them a good cricket. For fielders, I can understand fielding under the sun and heat. But for them (spectators) to sit down under immense heat and cheering was pretty special."
Pat Cummins (Australia Captain): "I think we were 50 runs short. Tough trying to defend 200 runs. It's always tough. Obviously, they're a very good bowling attack. Their spinners made us do a tough tough work. We had twenty overs of spin within the fifty overs.
I forgot about it [on Mitch Marsh's dropped catch]. Not ideal especially for his calibre. It happens. 10-4 would've been a dream start but it's okay. Little bit of nibble and he was fantastic today.
You know, have a bit of review of this one. Certainly, One game out of nine. Do not want to dwell on this too much. No, no regrets (On opting to bat first)."
Sidharth: Personally, I feel Australia were around 50 runs short. That made a big difference.
Ajay: I think it has to be that catch dropped by Mitch Marsh when Team India was in deep waters. You can't drop the chase master and he showed why not to 🙌
Akshaya: Australia lost in two parts! Firstly, they didn't read the situations perfectly following the dismissals of Warner or, maybe, even Smith. 250 would have been a match-winning total on this pitch.
Secondly, you don't drop catches and don't drop Virat Kohli with the team already on the back foot. So, catches win you matches- this phrase still stands tall. Had Mitchell Marsh taken that catch of Virat early on in his innings, who knows!
Sidharth: Guys, where do you think Australia lost this game?