Fifty years on, the ta­bles turned yes­ter­day on In­dia in the men’s ICC ODI World Cup fi­nal. Un­beat­en in the lead-up to yes­ter­day’s fi­nal, and seem­ing­ly as in­vin­ci­ble as Clive Lloyd’s West In­di­ans were in 1983, In­dia’s sub­mis­sion to the tough and un­re­lent­ing Aus­tralians gave the team from “Down Un­der” their sixth lien on the World Cup as de­serv­ing cham­pi­ons.

In­dia cap­tain Ro­hit Shar­ma and his team must have spent last night pon­der­ing what went so rad­i­cal­ly wrong, that the bat­ting line-up that had done so out­stand­ing­ly well, scor­ing be­yond 300-plus runs in­nings af­ter in­nings, could have been shut out for the low 240, and then for the first time, its high-qual­i­ty com­bi­na­tion of spin and pace at­tack failed to make a se­ri­ous im­pres­sion on the Aus­tralian bats­men.

For Aus­tralia, it was a to­tal team per­for­mance. Al­though its cen­tu­ry-mak­ing open­er Travis Head, who in part­ner­ship with Manus Labuschagne put on 192 for the win­ning fourth-wick­et part­ner­ship, must count as the sin­gle most sig­nif­i­cant per­for­mance of the fi­nal for which he du­ly re­ceived the Man-of-the-Match Award.

What makes this sixth ODI win by the Aus­tralians even more sat­is­fy­ing for their coun­try’s pride is the team’s come­back vic­to­ry from near de­feat by Afghanistan, which could have meant their not be­ing able to get in­to the semis. The out­stand­ing play­er of that game was Glen Maxwell with a whirl­wind 200 that stole the game away from the Afghans.

Yes­ter­day’s de­feat for In­dia in front of their cel­e­brat­ing and ador­ing fans was ob­vi­ous­ly very painful, and not a lit­tle self-di­min­ish­ing for the team, in­clu­sive of the sev­er­al cham­pi­on play­ers with­in its ranks. Hav­ing start­ed off their in­nings with en­ter­prise and as­sured stroke play, but hav­ing lost three quick wick­ets, the In­di­an bats­men, led by Vi­rat Kholi and KL Rahul, went on the de­fen­sive, and for ten long overs were not able to score one bound­ary; that was sure­ly a de­ci­sive pe­ri­od in the game.

When In­dia at­tempt­ed to get out of the co­coon, their bats­men, one af­ter the oth­er, suc­cumbed eas­i­ly and quick­ly to well-tar­get­ed and de­ter­mined Aus­tralian bowl­ing and field­ing.

The pain of In­dia notwith­stand­ing, the Aus­tralians, who did not start well in the tour­na­ment and were beat­en on a cou­ple of oc­ca­sions, were solid­ly pro­fes­sion­al in the fi­nal. But for the short pe­ri­od at the open­ing of the In­di­an in­nings, when cap­tain Shar­ma went af­ter the Aussie bowlers, Aus­tralia, with­out daz­zling per­for­mances in the field, did the job with com­po­sure and with­out at any point al­low­ing the home team the slight­est op­por­tu­ni­ty to get back in­to the game af­ter its se­ri­ous­ly un­der par 240-run to­tal.

Once again, team Aus­tralia has proven it­self to be tough, not giv­ing an inch to op­po­nents, and ruth­less when vic­to­ry is in sight; com­mend­able world cham­pi­ons they are once again.

The tour­na­ment al­so saw qual­i­ty per­for­mances from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and even the Dutch showed that with­in a decade, the cham­pi­ons of the past and present will be pushed.

In­dia, as host of the tour­na­ment, with its spec­tac­u­lar grounds, ar­guably not chal­lenged by any oth­er crick­et na­tion, and with sup­port­ers knowl­edge­able and en­thu­si­as­tic are vic­tors in their own right.

Our West In­di­an board-plus now have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­turn our crick­et to re­spectabil­i­ty and tri­umph.