Cricket fans left Chennai’s Marina and Besant Nagar beaches, teary-eyed and disappointed after India lost to Australia in the cricket World Cup Final on Sunday, November 19. Though disappointed, the crowd at the Marina beach broke into applause when Australia’s Travis Head recorded his century.
Thousands of cricket fans sat and cheered for the men in blue for over five hours at both the city’s beaches, where the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu (SDAT), along with the support of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), set up fan booths for live-telecasting the final game.
Pavithra, who was at the screening, told TNM, “The crowd was ecstatic till the first seven overs of the second innings when three Australian wickets fell, but after that, no one was cheering except when Travis Head scored his century. We came expecting India to win despite the low target, and I am very disheartened that we lost.”
Ajith, who claimed to have watched the match from 2 pm with his friends, was teary-eyed. He said that he wanted to watch Virat lift the cup. “Maybe if Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli had held their partnership for longer, we would have seen India lift the World Cup,” Ajith said. Several other fans expressed similar sentiments, including Kamala Narayanan, who said, “Maybe if Rohit Sharma settled in his role as a batter today and if the team managed to put up a target of 270 plus runs, we could have won. But we won all other matches consistently in this tournament, so undoubtedly, the Indian team has been the most successful this season.”
The two beaches had two hundred Greater Chennai Police (GCP) police officers each from 1 pm on Sunday. Fireworks kept in anticipation of India’s win went off as Australia won the match by six wickets after beating India’s 240 for all in 43 overs at Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium. This is Australia’s sixth World Cup win in 36 years.