The ICC Cricket World Cup final between Australia and India kicked off on Nov. 19 at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat to a crowd of approximately 92,000 people, with Australia winning the cup with 6 wickets and 42 balls left, leaving many Indian fans devastated.
“When India lost, we were all really sad,” senior Sehaj Sethi said. “Initially, you could just see on team India’s faces how disappointed they looked and how little motivation they had during the final. This wasn’t evident in the beginning of the game. So we just knew that this game wasn’t going to go well.”
India were favorites to win, since they have already beaten Australia by 6 wickets previously in the tournament. But Australia won the toss and chose to field first. Star batsmen Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer were out with less than 10 runs, giving Australia an easy number of runs, which are similar to points, to reach.
Indian batsman Virat Kohli earned the most runs in the World Cup with 765 runs and broke the record for the most number of centuries (100 runs by a single player) in One Day Internationals, with a career total of 50.
“I still think that even though the loss was disappointing, Kohli’s record still stands pretty high,” Sethi said. “He did really well this season; he definitely popped off. Rohit Sharma also did really well. I think that just a loss probably wouldn’t undermine his overall [reputation].”
After India’s 10-wicket loss to England in the T20 World Cup last year, many Indian fans hoped this year would be the year where the Indian team would win a world championship.
“It was heartbreaking because no one expected it to happen and we were all like, overhyped and it came up short,” junior Arjun Rajkumar said.
Although the competition was disappointing for Indian fans at Portola High, it created a sense of community among them. Rajkumar stayed up from midnight to 7:00 a.m. watching the match with his friends.
“I guess it was fun and comforting, but we all cried together,” Rajkumar said. “It was like a group bonding thing.”
At the end of the day, the experience of watching the cup was still a memorable and great experience.
“It was depressing to know that their one bad day was the day of the finals, but I mean, everyone’s human, so you have to forgive them; they’re players,” sophomore Kashvi Logu said.
