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On November 19, R Ashwin was quite positive that India
would win the World Cup. However, India finished as runners-up while Australia
won their sixth World Cup with to skipper Pat Cummins’ “tactical
brilliance and tactical execution”. This was Ashwin’s analysis of the
final, which he discussed this week on his YouTube channel in great detail.
“Pat Cummins was struggling as an ODI bowler
heading into the World Cup. But in the last four or five games leading into the
final, nearly 50% of the balls he bowled were cutters,” Ashwin said.
“In the final – I don’t know how many people
explained it on TV – Cummins bowled to a four-five leg-side field like an
offspinner, bowling the stump line. But he bowled only three balls in the
six-meter mark or further up on the pitch in his entire ten-over spell. [He]
knocked off crucial wickets in the final. The five fielders on the on side were
square leg, midwicket, mid-on, deep square leg and long leg, and he bowled his
ten overs without a mid-off.”
Cummins concluded with statistics of 2 for 34 and did
not give a boundary in a field that was primarily leg-side and lacked a
mid-off. Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer took the two wickets; Kohli played one on
while attempting to drive a back-of-a-length delivery to deep third, while Iyer
was dismissed by a low bounce on a length ball. The strikes had a significant
impact in limiting India to 240 people in Ahmedabad.
“Cummins’ execution should be applauded,”
Ashwin said. “It is easy to plan to bowl to a leg-side field. It is easier
to bowl that way in a Test match because the umpires will not call a wide even
if you bowl a couple of balls down leg.
“But to not bowl a wide down leg in an ODI,
execute the plans with that field and not allow batters to drive the ball is
brilliant. In my experience, I have seen bowlers go for at least one or two
fours with such a field.
“It was the first time I saw a fast bowler bowl
to an offspinner’s field without a mid-off in a one-day game. Tactical
brilliance, tactical execution. They had us there.”