'We Were Too Focused on Doctoring the Pitch': Mohammed Kaif on India's 2023 ODI WC Final Loss

Months after the shattering 2023 World Cup finals loss, the former Indian cricketer, Mohammed Kaif believes that India lost out on the prized trophy by focussing too much on making sure the track went against the strengths of the Aussie quicks.

Speaking in an interview with The Lallantop, Kaif shared some insights on the track for the big finals. He was also part of the live shows for the coverage of the tournament. He revealed,” I was there for three days before the match, we did a lot of live shows. Rohit Sharma came in the evening, and so did Rahul Dravid. They roamed around the pitch, they stood for about an hour and were done. This went on for three days and I saw the colour of the track change”.

He even used a metaphor to explain the nature of the track,” The shirt I am wearing is blue but after three days it became yellow the colour of the pitch changed that much. There was no watering, no grass and the pitch was slow then, this is the truth even if the people don’t believe me”.

Kaif added, “You can always ask the ground staff to put more water or to cut the grass. It happens and they should do this since it is a home game.”

However, the former Indian cricketer made an interesting point of how the Aussie skipper learned from the side’s loss against India in the league stage. He commented,”  Cummins learnt from the first game in Chennai with the slow track. He had won the toss and chose to bat first and then later with the dew and India won the game then. Cummins used this learning experience and applied it in the big game at the finals

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He also added,” See when you win the toss, you don’t go and field first, there is a record as well, we did it in 2003 and we lost. But Cummins learned well.”

India had managed to secure the win against Australia in Chennai thanks to a fantastic batting effort from the pair of Virat Kohli and KL Rahul to chase down the target set by the Australians.

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Kaif however concluded by saying,” Had it been a normal flat pitch, the form Shami was in, we could have made the runs and defended it. But I feel that by focusing too much on doctoring the pitch, we got trapped”.