India were chasing lost cause in WTC final after day two collapse

LONDON : When Mohammed Shami asked for a DRS review on an lbw decision with India nine men down and 212 runs short of their victory target in the World Test Championship final against Australia, even die-hard fans could be forgiven for wondering why he bothered.

In the end, the DRS intervention only delayed Australia's celebrations by around five minutes.

The truth of the matter is that India lost their second successive WTC final on day two of this encounter when they collapsed to 71-4 in response to Australia's first-innings total of 469. From that point on they always looked second best, even though the world rankings state they are top dogs.

Only three Indian batsmen managed to stick around long enough to score more than 15 runs in their first innings: Ajinkya Rahane (89), Ravindra Jadeja (48) and Shardul Thakur (51). And once Australia had set up a 444-run fourth-innings target, Pat Cummins' side looked locked-in for the victory.

For Australia, losing the toss on the opening morning could not have worked out better.

First Travis Head (163) and Steve Smith (121) enjoyed a 285-run partnership to set Australia on their way. Then pace quartet Scott Boland, Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green kept delivering killer blows to scoop nine wickets between them in India's first innings.

"I thought we started well with winning the toss and we bowled pretty well in the first session. Then we let ourselves down," a dejected Indian captain Rohit Sharma said after India suffered the second successive WTC final defeat.

"You have to give credit to the Australian batters, especially Travis Head came in and played really well along with Steven Smith. That took us off guard and we knew it was hard to come back."

Considering the