"Felt like one of those days where it was all made for him to score another hundred" - Pat Cummins on Virat Kohli's dismissal in 2023 World Cup final
Australian skipper Pat Cummins acknowledged dismissing star batter Virat Kohli as the crucial moment during the 2023 World Cup final in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
With India on 148/3 in the 29th over and the game hanging in the balance, Cummins cleaned up Kohli with a delivery that took the inside edge onto the stumps. Kohli was batting on 54 and looking set to flex his muscles for another three-figure knock.
At the press conference post-game, Cummins spoke about acknowledging the silence around the ground with Kohli's dismissal:
"We did take a second in the huddle just to acknowledge the silence that was going around the crowd. It just felt like it was one of those days where it was all made for him to score another hundred like he normally does so yeah that was satisfying."
After restricting India to a mediocre 240, the Aussies chased the total in only 43 overs with six wickets in hand. It was the side's record sixth ODI World Cup title, four clear of second-placed India and the West Indies with two.
Cummins felt winning the ODI World Cup, especially in India, was the pinnacle of his career.
"That's huge, I think that's the pinnacle of international cricket, winning a one-day World Cup. Especially over here in India, in front of a crowd like this. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah, it's been a big year for everyone, but our cricket team has been here in India, Ashes, World Test Championship and top it off with this is just huge. These are the moments that you'll remember for the rest of your life," Cummins said.
"It's just every international team comes together," he added. "You only get a shot at it every four years. Even if you have a ten-year career, you might only get two chances at it. And yeah, it's just the whole cricket world stops with this World Cup. So, it doesn't get any better."
With the win, Australia completed the double by lifting the World Test Championship (WTC) and the ODI World Cup this year.
"We didn't want to kind of limp into the semi-finals" - Pat Cummins
Pat Cummins spoke about Australia wanting to be brave throughout the World Cup. He also pointed to having David Warner, Travis Head, and Mitchell Marsh in the top three as evidence.
Despite missing the first half of the 2023 World Cup, Head repaid the selectors' faith in style by winning the Player of the Match award in the semi-final and final. The southpaw also pulled off a brilliant catch to dismiss a dangerous-looking Rohit Sharma and followed that up with a scintillating 137 off 120 deliveries.
"We wanted to be pretty brave this World Cup, we didn't want to kind of limp into the semi-finals, we wanted to be the team that could score 400 and you saw that the way we kind of shaped up with Trav, [David] Warner and then having [Mitchell] Marshy at number three. We wanted to be really aggressive and then a couple of our all-rounders are obviously aggressive to finish up the innings so we would rather fail that way," said Cummins.
Cummins reserved special praise for the unsung hero of the final, Marnus Labuschagne, who scored 58* off 110 deliveries.
"But then Marnus just showed his class and in South Africa you had to pick him, he was fantastic and he was playing a different style to probably what he did for the first start of his ODI career. It was paying off and we know he's a gun so you had to try and find room for him," Cummins concluded.
From a precarious 47/3, Head and Labuschagne stitched together a magnificent 192-run partnership to seal the victory.
It was also Australia's sixth win in eight ODI World Cup finals, while India dropped to 2-2 in the summit clash.