AHMEDABAD: Watching live sport in India is different for a number of reasons. One, the nature of the crowd is a good barometer to understand which way the match is headed. If India are losing, the silence hits you like a ton of bricks. At half-past-three on Sunday afternoon, there was an eerie sort of uncomfortable silence amid more than 90,000. In the middle, Virat Kohli and K L Rahul were involved in a fine, if slightly slow, rebuilding job on a surface devoid of pace.
It was the sort of silence the Indian team hadn’t felt since their World Cup began on October 8. Chennai, New Delhi, Lucknow... Kolkata, they had spread joy. For nine hours on all 10 matchdays preceding the final, they had made tens of thousands fall in love all over again. They had the buy in. Now, they were taking the country on an emotional journey. An epic was being composed.
That journey was stopped at the altar by a familiar team, wearing a familiar colour. Australia’s canary yellow. A target of 241 may have been enough on some days but not on this day of days. Up against a battle-hardened team full of winners, the hosts came up short. Jasprit Bumrah, like he has so often done, bowled a couple of magic balls to give the hosts a sniff.
But it wasn’t to be as the mercurial Travis Head combined with the fidgety but assured Marnus Labuschagne to take them home with six wickets to spare. That sort of uncomfortable silence — vast swathes of Australia’s innings may have well been played at a funeral — enveloped the Stadium by the end. “To sea a blue of everywhere, it’s an experience you will never forget,” skipper Pat Cummins said after the game. “The good thing is they weren’t noisy for much of it.” Ouch!
While some of the silence was understandable, the brand of cricket this team has played will be remembered for years to come. Sure, the tag of ‘losing finalists’ will hurt all of them. It ought to but this was a campaign where they entertained, won big games at a canter while embracing a more modern batting approach. A few may opt to question why Rohit Sharma played a rash shot against Glenn Maxwell so soon after scoring 10 off the first two balls in the over, but that’s missing the point.
It was the method that had taken India to the final. There will be postmortems to understand why that big ICC crown continues to elude them — in fact, it’s not a good look when you have gone without one for 10 years while commanding more than 75% of the total wealth of the sport — but there’s no shame in losing after you have given your all. That’s all you can ask for. After Maxwell hit the winning runs, a few of the Indian players slumped to the ground. A glorious dream had died a painful death. The theatre of dreams had turned into the theatre of tears. On Sunday morning, Ahmedabad woke up with promise. As the lights were switched off deep into the early winter night 16 hours later, the mood music was of eerie silence.