Australia defeated India in the ICC World Test Championship (WTC 2023) final which was played at the Oval in London from June 7-11. This is the first time Australia won the ICC WTC mace, while India has now lost both the finals, they have played in.
Australia had been asked to bat first by India captain Rohit Sharma under overcast conditions on day one, a decision that he regrets now as the conditions became conducive to batting after the first two hours.
Australia posted a massive 469 runs thanks to Travis Head’s 163 and Steve Smith’s 121 runs and their 285-run partnership. David Warner made 43 and Alex Carey made 48 runs as well. For India Mohammed Siraj was the pick of bowlers with 4/108.
India was then bowled out for 296 runs with Ajinkya Rahane making 89 and Shardul Thakur scoring 51 runs as Australian bowlers made merry. Pat Cummins took three wickets, while Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland, and Cameron Green took two each.
Australia, in their second innings, posted 270/8d with Alex Carey making 66* and 41 each from Marnus Labuschagne and Mitchell Starc.
Faced with a mountain of 444 runs to win, India started well but lost 3 wickets for 164 runs at the end of day 4.
Scott Boland then hurt India badly on day five when he removed Virat Kohli for 49 runs and Ravindra Jadeja for a duck in the same over and it was then just a matter of time before India folded for 234 runs with Ajinkya Rahane making 46.
Australia won the WTC 2023 final by 209 runs as Nathan Lyon picked 4/41 and Scott Boland took 3/46. Travis Head was named the Player of the Match for his first innings knock of 163 runs.
With this win, Australia became the first team to achieve all ICC silverware- 5 ODI World Cups, 2 Champions Trophies, a T20 World Cup win, and now the Test mace.
The cricket fraternity was all praises for the Pat Cummins-led side and lauded them on Twitter.
Here are the tweets:
