Australia have the advantage of more knowledge about Indian team than other competitors at the World Cup because of the two ODI series they played in the country this year, winning one of them. However, the 1.32 lakh crowd breathing down the players’ necks would be new.
“We know it is going to be a packed house. There are going to be 1,30,000 fans here supporting India. So, it’s going to be awesome. We play over here in India a lot, so the noise is not something new — yeah, I think on this scale it’s probably bigger than we would have experienced before,” said Australia skipper Pat Cummins on Saturday to the media.
“I think you’ve got to embrace it. The crowd’s obviously going to be very one-sided but it’s also in sport there is nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent and that is the aim for us tomorrow,” said the pace bowler, who bowls first change.
The 30-year-old added that they wouldn’t want to be overwhelmed something other teams have against India due to the heavily partisan crowd.
“You’ve just got to embrace every part of it, every part of a final even you know in the lead-up there’s going to be noise and more people and interest and you just can’t get overwhelmed. You got to be up for it, you got to love it and finish the day with no regrets.”
The right-armer Cummins also explained how his players will deal with the noise.
“Everyone deals with it slightly differently. You see Davey [Warner] probably dancing and winning the crowd over other guys just staying in their own bubble – yeah it should be good,” said Cummins to the media.
Need to avoid pressure to take better decisions: Rohit
India cricket team captain Rohit Sharma on Saturday harked back to the words he spoke at the start of the World Cup about not letting the pressure of winning the World Cup get to themselves but did admit that there has been significant amount of it.
“The other 10 players who will play on the ground tomorrow, their focus will be more on their work for the team, rather than thinking about this being the biggest moment of their lives. Of course, it is. There is no doubt. [At the] Back of the mind, it is there. You can’t hide from that. But it’s really important to remain calm in such situations because you take better decisions when you are calm,” said Rohit, speaking to the media.
“Yeah, I had said [before the first World Cup match] it’ll be nice to win the World Cup. In the same tone, I want to say it now again, the same thing [that] it’ll be nice to do it… But again, we don’t want to get too excited about it, or you don’t want to feel too much pressure about it,” he added.
Hotel and airlines fares skyrocket
The lead-up to the World Cup final in Ahmedabad has made travel to the city and stay here very expensive as airlines and hotels seem to have hiked their rates due to heavy demand.
A businessman travelling from Boston, USA to watch the World Cup told Patriot how much he had to shell out.
“The three-hour long flight from Kolkata to Mumbai (where World Cup games are over now) cost me around Rs 12,000. However, the one-hour flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad a few hours after that cost me Rs 32,000. My friend, who is also travelling from Mumbai to Ahmedabad for the final had to shell out Rs 42,000 for a flight. It is crazy,” he said.
Hotels too aren’t easily or cheaply available.
A visitor to the city, who had booked hotel rooms by mistake for December instead of November before rescheduling, said, “The room available for Rs 1800 in December is costing Rs 8,000 during the same dates in November. Rooms aren’t easily available.”
