BENGALURU: On Sunday morning, the Garden City decked itself up for the Festival of Lights, Deepavali. As a pleasant early winter sun started making its presence felt, a vast majority of them, with their shiny new clothes, filled Queens Road and Cubbon Road as they began walking towards the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Even if the World Cup’s final league match was devoid of any jeopardy -- the hosts had already rubber-stamped their entry into the last four winning eight out of eight -- they didn’t want to let slip the momentum they had built over the last five weeks. So, as expected, they named an unchanged side. As soon as Rohit Sharma won the toss, he had no hesitation in batting first on a strip with lots of runs.
They finished with 410/4 as they married aggression with timing. The Supreme Court may have banned certain crackers but the near-capacity crowd were treated to an electric display of batting from every member of India’s top five, including 100s from Shreyas Iyer (128 n.o, 10x4, 5x6) and KL Rahul (102, 11x4, 4x6). It was only the third time in ODI history that each of the top five had scored in excess of 50.
The total was always going to be a mountain to climb for the Netherlands and they were bowled out for 250 to give the hosts a ninth straight World Cup win. Only once before have they managed this feat but that came across two WCs (2011 and 2015). As has been the case in several games, the bowlers shared the wickets. Even if Mohammed Shami had a rare off night in terms of taking wickets, the four other frontline bowlers picked two wickets each. Virat Kohli, who bowled three overs much to the delight of the crowd, and Rohit Sharma (not a misprint), picked one each as the hosts protected their pacers with the semifinal fixture on Wednesday. Even Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav rolled their arms over before the skipper picked the final wicket of the night.
If Rohit (61, 8x4, 2x6), Shubman Gill (51 3x4, 4x6) and Kohli (51 5x4, 1x6) came up with the five-course degustation menu, Iyer and Rahul’s back-end domination meant the collective efforts of the batting group had resulted in a winning combination. The already well-set pair put the foot down at the death and ended up scoring 126 runs across the last 10 overs.
The continued efficiency of India’s middle-order will stand them in good stead when the business end of the event begins next week with the first of the two semifinals. The hosts had a perennial question mark over their Nos. 4 and 5 at the last World Cup. That sort of indecisiveness cost them against New Zealand in the semifinal of the last edition in 2019. There’s no such issue this time out as the team has a settled look to it.
Coach Rahul Dravid had called it ‘exceptional’ on Saturday. “Our middle-order has been truly exceptional in this tournament,” he had said. “I can look back at this whole campaign... one knock here, two knocks there. A Shreyas innings, a Rahul knock, Jaddu (Ravindra Jadeja) innings in Dharamsala. You can look at a lot of these small, small things, and actually that’s what really gives you those wins at the end of the day. So, it’s a combination of things.”
On Monday, the players will leave for Mumbai. Standing between them and the final is New Zealand. If the batting unit can find their mojo again -- they have been on song throughout the tournament -- there is no reason to suggest they won’t be in the final on November 19.
Brief scores: India 410/4 in 50 overs (Rohit Sharma 61, Shubman Gill 51, Virat Kohli 51, Shreyas Iyer 128*, KL Rahul 102, Netherlands 250/9 in 50 overs Max ODowd 30, Colin Ackermann 35, SKYbrand Engelbrecht 45).
Semifinal line-up
November 15 India v. New Zealand @ Mumbai
November 16 Australia v. South Africa @ Kolkata
