Final - India v Australia Report Card

Featuring Rob Reiner, hat factories, shouting gibberish and freneticism

Rob Reiner
Grade: C+

And so to the World Cup Final, meticulously planned to be a coronation of a great India side, who had won ten out of ten matches in the tournament so far, and who were scorching hot favourites to sign off with a victory in the decider in front of a hundred odd thousand raucous, blue-shirted fans.

Instead, a different wave of blue would come to envelop the crowd, as Pat Cummins and his Australian team took on the role of the befuddled Rob Reiner in This Is Spinal Tap, expressing studied scepticism about the very idea of India going to eleven. 

Cummins won the toss and surprised every human being on the planet by electing to bowl first. Initially, the thought was that perhaps he was thinking of fans back home. Knock India over for 120-odd, run the target down before midnight. Proper leadership. 

He later revealed that the plan to chase had been discussed at a team meeting the night before. “We were very chilled last night,” Cummins said. “We had a team meeting, a few of the boys sat around and had dinner and then I played about half an hour of Call of Duty.”

As established in the Amazon documentaries, Cummins is a dreadful Call of Duty player. (Or, at least, he was. Knowing Pat, he’s probably worked hard on it in his spare time and is now the number three ranked player in the world or something.)

But the call of dew? Well, that’s something else. Because once everybody regained their composure over the toss, conjecture soon turned to this being a dew-based decision, with the mystical water droplets once again speculated to make any run chase in the second innings easier. 

Great to see us still talking about dew in the final match of this World Cup, just as we were in the first game seven months ago.

Hat Factories
Grade: B-

Of course, before Australia could get to the point of any purported dew assistance, they still had to deal with India batting first. This would not be easy, as reflected by the fact that Rohit Sharma also revealed at the toss that he would have chosen to bat first, and dew be damned. (He didn’t actually say that latter bit, but imagine if he did! That’s showmanship, baby!)