Ahmedabad: India captain Rohit Sharma credited the crucial innings by Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne for helping Australia beat the hosts by six wickets in the final of the ICC Men's ODI World Cup 2023, here at Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday.
Head and Labuschagne added 192 runs for the match-winning fourth-wicket partnership after Australia lost early wickets and were reduced to 47 for 3.
Head slammed a match-winning knock of 137 off 120 deliveries and became only the third Australian to score a century in the final of ODI World Cup.
"The result has not gone our way. We were not good enough today. We tried everything but it wasn't supposed to be. 20-30 runs more would have been good, KL and Kohli were stitching a good partnership and we were looking at 270-280 but we kept losing wickets," Rohit Sharma said after the match.
Rohit said Head and Labuschagne batted them out of the match.
"When you have 240 on the board, you want to take wickets but credit to Head and Labuschagne for putting us out of the game, but I feel (the) wicket got slightly better to bat under lights. Don't want to give that as an excuse. We didn't put enough runs on the board. Credit to those two guys in the middle for putting up an outstanding partnership."
Earlier, asked to bat first India put up a below-par score of 240 runs in 50 overs after suffering early loss of wickets. Rohit made a thrilling start to the innings, scoring 47 off 31 deliveries before he got out to Glenn Maxwell attempting a big shot.
India struggled in the middle overs as the Australians bowled tight lines, not giving any chance to score runs. Virat Kohli struggled to 54 runs before getting out to Pat Cummins, trying to chip the ball down to third man.
The Australian pacers yet again rose to the occasion as Mitchell Starc claimed three wickets, and Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins two wickets apiece.
However, the Indian bowlers yet again looked sharp as they sent the top three Australian batters to the pavilion at 47 runs. It was the innings of Head that took away the game from the Indians as they struggled to get him out.
Australia clinched their record Sixth ODI World Cup title after losing the first two games of the tournament.
With inputs from agencies