Australia were crowned the new World Test Champions after they beat India by 209 runs on Day 5 of the World Test Championship (WTC) final at The Oval in London on Sunday, June 11. Chasing 444, and 280 on the final day of the Test, the Indian batting lost seven wickets for 70 runs as the Australians wrapped up the game within the first session of the day.
Speaking during the post-match presentation, India's skipper Rohit Sharma chose not to blame the pitch for their performance and instead, agreed on the fallacies in their bowling while also praising the Australian batters, especially Travis Head, as the side succumbed lost their second straight WTC final.
"We started well winning the toss and putting them into bat in those conditions. We bowled pretty well in the first session and then we let ourselves down a little bit with how we bowled. But again, credit to the Australian batters, in particular, Travis Head came in and played really well. That took us off guard a little bit and then we knew it was always hard to come back," he said.
He credited Ajinkya Rahane and Shardul Thakur's partnership in the first innings but once again, knew when and where the team went wrong in the run chase. "I thought it was a great fightback from Rahane and Shardul after being 5 down for 150. They stood up and put up a good partnership there and kept us in the game. We bowled pretty well in the second innings. Again we didn't apply ourselves with the bat. It was a good pitch to bat on," he said.
Rohit was really disappointed with not being able to win the WTC final for a second-straight season, having worked hard to reach this position for two years, "All five days the pitch behaved pretty well and we didn't capitalise. We've worked really hard for four years to make two finals.
"It's disappointment for us. We would like to go one better. But you cannot take anything away from what we've done in the two years. It's a great effort. A lot of players took part in those series. We'll keep our heads high and fight for the next championship as well," concluded the India skipper.
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