I believe it was more of tactical error than the pitch factor.

• India had come earlier to Ahmedabad the venue for the finals. The pitch condition was there to be seen by them in those 3 days.
• Based on that what they saw, they thought to keep the same playing XI for the finals. I believe here they made a crucial mistake. They should have picked Ravi Ashwin in place of Siraj. Ashwin is big game player and Aussies do respect him a lot. Irrespective of what “covered pitch’ would look . He is always a handy bowler for India, both in attack/defence. Playing 3 spinners would be playing to their strength.

Rohit Sharma a selfless captain!.

• From the Asia Cup Rohit Sharma had clear vision on how opening stand would approach their innings(irrespective when they bat, or what target they are chasing). It was only one, i.e go after the bowling, and he took it on himself to do the job.
• Below stats table reflects how selfless Rohit Sharma is when opening the batting in those 20 ODIs, and in only 3 matches the run rate was 3 or less for 1st wicket, otherwise it was above 6!. 
• Interstingly in 13 matches(out of 20) Rohit never batted beyond the 20th over!

• Toss factor: They would have preferred to bowl first if they had won the toss, allowing spin trio to start choking Aussies from 9^th over onwards. Chasing under lights would become easy post 7^th

1. If they were send to bat, the tactic was same, ie go after the bowling with Rohit taking the initiative followed by Gill, and Kohli batting till 40^th over

Announcing the same XI and send it to bat didn’t alter India’s vision to go after the bowling!.

• 6.90 -The openers once again gave India a decent start, with Rohit going after the bowing. However it was Gill who got out to his favourite shot “frontfoot punch/slap pull”. Interestingly in his 7 ball stay this was the first he received much shorter in length. it tempted him to play across the line. I believe it was more of mind-set than shot execution. He had 3 low scoring shots, and was itching to score a boundary by playing his favorite shot! For me this was first breaking point for Australia. This didn’t quieten Rohit he kept on playing “selfless cricket” , looking for boundaries and paid the price.
• <4 : 5.30 The middle period of India’s batting from Kohli-Rahul suggested India were looking to score anything over 270 after Shreyas Iyer got dismissed. Till then the run rate for top three wickets were 6.90, 8.6 and 7.5- Then Australia were able to apply the break by choking them with spin. After that run rate never went past 4.9 till the last wicket of 5.30 by K Yadav/Siraj.

• Here I believe SuryaKumar Yadav should have been sent after Kohli’s dismissal in the 29^th Not suggesting Jadeja is average batsman, but he has limited skill sets to bat in the middle order (20-30^th over) Yadav, although did not get enough opportunity in this CWC , but I believe he would have played a different role. Post 40^th over is where Jadeja would be good finding gaps, and hitting boundaries every 3 / 4 balls.

Defending 241 in 50 overs

When defending a small total, a team needs to be aware of this fact. How would we approach our batting chasing small score in a finals!.

Australia did the same and there was no other script for them, but it was India who bowled well in power play. After getting Warner and Marsh they had both Head and Smith struggling.

For me this was the 3^rd breaking point for Australia. India employed spin when ball was still moving around!. Instead of introducing Siraj they employed spin-twin. One can understand Rohit’s tactics here, “ reduce boundaries and let them take risk”. Australia did same they defended their wicket and reduced risky shots.

However if they would have employed Siraj, they could have conceded few boundaries, but could have created more opportunities! It is always difficult to rotate strike against fast bowlers when ball is new and moving around, hence batsman tend to look for boundaries and play risky shots.

Whereas with spin it is much easier to rotate strike. The ball does not come on to bat and you only have to push/steer or drive to deep square field or in V to rotate strike. There is less risk in playing these shots. Hence Australia scored only two boundaries between 11-20^th over. Below table shows scoring shots in set of 5-overs(exclusive). 

Here is overall stats of scoring shots in each 5-over phase.

From above table it is very clear that due to field restriction teams are able to score boundary at will, even consecutive ones. However when field restriction is released than lesser scorings(1s,2s) comes into play including the consecutive ones. Hence you have high % of 2 Consecutive dot balls in first power play.  One can easily see how boundary rate drops down by 6 points and then slow rise to 12 in last 10-oveers.