Why we lost the CWC 23?!

In arguably the best World Cup season we've had so far all up until the finals, at least of all that I've witnessed, the ending was a classic disappointment. What's weirder is there isn't anyone in the team you can actually hold accountable for this dramatic defeat. Virat, Rohit, and Shami gave it their all and you couldn't have asked for more from them. So did Bumrah! What's even more appreciable is that this season, at least in those 10 wins, India really played like a team. The batsmen did their jobs nicely and the bowlers, all of them in the starting 11 had 10+ wickets.  

Taking no respect away from the Aussies and Cummins' exceptional strategic approach, yesterday if someone or something had a bigger factor to add to the game than Travis Head, then it was the due factor, surely. We hoped the slow pitch which usually offers less bounce for the ball would come in handy in the second innings as well like it did in the first but the dew surely made the bat-ball connection grow wild, as it does always. The most unthinkable of stadiums to pick was picked for the finals to be held at. Did the officials really forget a thing called 'toss' is a considerably huge factor? With India the sole host, BCCI formed a committee to decide the venues for each game and after considerable statistic analysis, if this is how you lose a game, it really inspires the question if international trophies are really what the authorities at the office want or is it just blank, vacuous marketing of politics and thousand and one arbitrary ways to make money while organizing a cricket match?!  

- Dibyendu Maji, 21st November, 2023 

PC: ICC