It’s been 26 days since India’s gut-wrenching defeat to Australia in the final of the World Cup, and while some have moved on, most are still coming to terms with what transpired on the night of November 19. India, easily the best team of the tournament by quite some distance, came up short against Australia, who romped home by six wickets to become five-time World Champions. The visuals of a broken and shattered Team India, controlling their tears as they went up to collect the runner-up medals and then dispersing into the change room is a sight that will remain etched in the minds of Indian fans.
Most of the players from that squad didn’t play the next assignment – and rightly so given how long they were on the road during a gruelling World Cup schedule – which began just four days later. There are still fans who claim on social media platform X, that they haven’t seen a single cricket game featuring Team India since the final, when in reality, Indian cricket is trying to move on, first with a 4-1 series win against Australia in T20Is and then drawing the South Africa T20Is 1-1.
With so much happening in such a short time, the legendary Sunil Gavaskar shed light on the several distractions that exist. With focus shifting to a bilateral series at home, and then a full-fledged tour of South Africa, to go with the IPL 2024 retentions, followed by the auction on December 19, Indian cricket is back up and running, but the former India captain pointed out that he, along with many more were not too interested in the T20I series against Australia.
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“Barely had the tears dried up after the unexpected loss in the final of the ICC World Cup, Indian cricket showed it had the ability to move on. The focus was shifted to the transfer window for the IPL next season. Yes, there was a five-match T20 series being played between India and Australia, but hey, after what was a memorable World Cup, who was bothered about the T20 series except the staunch Indian cricket lovers,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for The Mid-Day.
The retentions were a huge distraction. The Sunday after the World Cup final heartbreak, all 10 IPL franchises, during a 2-hour long show, revealed the list of players they had retained and let go. With names such as Ben Stokes released, and Hardik Pandya’s trade to Mumbai Indians making headlines, IPL 2024, always lurking at the back of the mind of your average Indian cricket fan, had already come to the fore. The IPL is still at least three months away – the dates haven’t even been announced yet – with the next big event being the auction set to take place in Dubai on Tuesday, but Gavaskar rightly mentioned and talked about the interest it has already generated.
“The big boys from both teams were not playing anyway, so there was no compelling reason to watch the T20 series after two months of top-class ODI cricket. Instead, there was much more intrigue and interest in the transfer and trade, which was to be done within that week’s deadline. Who was going to be transferred, who was going to be released, who was going where, was what the Indian fan was looking at,” he added.
