Key moments of the WTC Final: One mammoth partnership, a selection gamble and clutch catches

Report: Australia crowned ICC World Test Champions

From team selection to tactical plans, Australia's execution was spot on in a match where the same cannot be said for India.

We take a look at the key stages of a fascinating match and how Australia earned the ICC WTC mace.

A big talking point of the WTC Final came before a ball had even been bowled when the world’s top-ranked Test bowler was left out of India’s XI in favour of a fourth seamer.

Not picking Ravichandran Ashwin is always going to be a gamble, but the selection was at least consistent with India’s strategy across their last five Tests in English conditions – an approach they have adopted ever since the inclusion of two spinners was seen as a misstep in the previous WTC Final in Southampton back in 2021.

Would Ashwin have made a difference? Possibly. His batting wouldn’t have hurt, and an Oval wicket that offered spin and called for defensive lines could have been well suited to his game.

But both Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur (the players who could have been omitted had Ashwin been picked) contributed well, and it’s far from certain that the result would have been different were Ashwin to have played.

With heavy but temporary cloud cover hanging over south London and with a green tinge to the overall wicket, it was understandable that India opted to bowl first after winning the toss – particularly given their selection of four quicks.

In hindsight, it was that first morning where the overhead conditions were most in the bowler’s favour during the course of the match, right up until the fifth day, and India just didn’t take advantage.

Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj bowled well in patches, but they didn’t go quite full enough at times and then were far too slow to test Travis Head with short-pitched deliveries when the Australian number five came to the crease.

And neither of the change bowlers, Umesh or Shardul, hit their lengths anywhere near consistently enough in that first session.

Australia did lose Usman Khawaja early on and David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne either side of lunch, but the Warner-Labuschagne partnership took the sting out of the new ball. And India’s intensity evaporated as the day went on.

If the first half of the opening day was all about survival, the second half saw the key partnership of the match.

Travis Head’s attacking intent put India on the back foot, and the runs flowed for Head and Steve Smith as the day progressed.

Batting never looked as comfortable again in the game, and the pair took full advantage as they scored the majority of their 285-run****partnership through to the close of the first day.

Their efforts meant that Australia were always ahead of the game from that point on.

Two near-identical deliveries and two similarly unwise leaves ended the first-innings stays of both Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara in breathtaking moments on day two.

Scott Boland had never played a Test in England and still hasn’t reached double figures of Test appearances for Australia, but he looked at home straight away with the Duke ball, and produced a classic bit of seam bowling to do for Gill.

Pitching the ball just fractionally wider but angling in, Boland got it to seam in substantially, with Gill looking befuddled as he tried to work out how he’d left a ball that ended up crashing into the top of middle and off.

Cameron Green’s carbon copy delivery did exactly the same for Pujara, who could hardly believe that he’d made the same error of judgement, albeit to another peach of a delivery.

The fact that all results were still possible in this match heading into the final day was largely due to the counterattacking efforts of Ajinkya Rahane and Shardul Thakur.

The pair’s partnership of 109 limited India’s losses in the first innings after all of the top four had fallen for scores in the teens.

Rahane probably deserved a ton for his comeback knock, hitting 89 in his first Test appearance for India in over a year after being dropped from the XI in the spring of 2022.

And Thakur’s half-century showcased the skillset that saw India pick him in the first place – that ability to add lower-order runs as well as offering a bit of something different with the ball.

Both have done their chances of an extended stay in the India set-up no harm.

If catches win matches, then Aussie allrounder Green should be getting the plaudits from his teammates after this one.

Green clung on to an absolutely outrageous grab to remove Ajinkya Rahane in the first innings – a catch that the watching former England quick Steven Finn described as the best he’d ever seen live.

And Green’s effort low to his left to remove Gill in the second innings was a remarkable bit of athleticism.

Whether the ball touched the ground or was cleanly taken will be debated for some time, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that it was remarkable that Green even got to it, such was the distance he had to travel and the lack of time he had to react.

The 24-year-old is one special, special player.

Alex Carey flies under the radar a bit in this star-studded Australian side, but the keeper played his part in both innings of this game.

His tidy 48 in the first dig ensured that Australia got to a total that really put them in charge of the match. But it was his excellent half-century in the second innings that really made the difference, coming just at the time when India thought they had a sniff of restricting the target to an achievable number.

Carey’s composed 66* stopped the momentum swinging India’s way, and allowed Australia to execute their declaration plan to the letter – take time out of the game and then have a bit of fun to set a mammoth total.

There was an outside chance of some rain on the fifth day, leaving Australia slightly vulnerable to missing out on victory should they have failed to take early wickets.

So it was important and impressive that they hit their straps to such an extent on Sunday’s fifth morning of the match.

The brilliant Boland got the ball rolling, superbly removing Virat Kohli and then bagging Ravindra Jadeja two balls later as he got his line and length absolutely spot on.

And the combination of Mitchell Starc’s bombs from one end and Nathan Lyon’s spin from the other proved the right mix to wrap up the match.

To take seven wickets in a session underlined Australia’s dominance in this match and illustrated why they richly deserve the ICC World Test Championship Mace.