Former India Head Coach Ravi Shastri expressed his displeasure at India taking the defensive option of fielding first after having won the toss in the WTC final against Australia at the Oval on Wednesday, June 7. Notably, Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bowl first under overcast conditions, choosing to go with four pacers and the only spinner in Ravindra Jadeja as well, dropping the veteran R Ashwin.

Speaking to the ICC at the end of the day’s play, Shastri said: “What came out today, the mindset was to field if they won the toss, hence the choices in the bowling department – 4 seamers and 1 spinner. If the mindset was positive, you want to bat come what may, rough it out in that first session of play and then see if you can put 250 on the board. Dont think too big, 250-260 and if the conditions got better and you saw off that first session you could have got more,” said Shastri.

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However, the decision backfired as Australia finished Day 1 at 327/3. Shastri also admitted that India need to strike with the second ball at the start of Day 2 as well. In India’s last tour of England, the hosts chose to bowl first and paid the price for it as India, despite having a moderate total on the board in the first innings, won the game comfortably by a mammoth 157 runs.

“You’ve got to think wickets, in a situation like this if you are going to wait for things to happen this game’s gone, Australia will be another 200 runs ahead by tea time tomorrow, if not more. So you’ve got to think wickets, try and make the second new ball count in that first 45 minutes of play. You would have seen what you did with Head today, better lines into the body , lot of short stuff and take it from there. If you strike a couple early, you take one step at a time,” again added Ravi Shastri.

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“Winning will become difficult if they lose that session in the morning because Australia will bat India out of the contest by even wanting to bat two and a half sessions tomorrow. With the way they are going, they could be 600+. I think Australia are in prime position. It’s up to them now to really allow India back into this game because they’ve batted beautifully, great application in that first session of play that really set things up,” Ravi Shastri concluded.