Australia beat India to win cricket World Test Championship

Victory by 209 runs at the Oval means Australia captured the only major men’s cricket title that had eluded them.

Excited Australia wasted little time crushing Indian hopes of staging a final-day miracle as they stormed to a 209-run victory in the World Test Championship (WTC) final at The Oval.

Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane needed to score 280 points on the final day on Sunday to meet Australia’s mammoth goal of 444 wins.

However, the boisterous fans were left muted and dejected as Scott Boland and his fellow bowlers ripped through the Indian batting order to dismiss the world’s best team for 234 and complete the victory before the lunch break.

In the seventh over of the day, Kohli pushed fast bowler Boland to a great catch at Steve Smith’s second slip and went away for 49. Boland got Ravindra Jadeja in the same over.

India had been chasing the game since morning one and Kohli’s demise confirmed that it was a question of when, not if, Australia would become World Test champions first time.

Rahane, at 20 on the night, reached 46 as he pushed Starc behind and started with a collapse of the last five Indian wickets in the 30 minutes before the scheduled lunch.

Boland started Australia’s celebrations with his two wickets, and Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon also took two each in the morning. Wicket-keeper Alex Carey had four catches in the innings.

The Indians lost their last seven wickets before adding just 70 runs on the final day of the match.

The win meant Australia had now captured the only major men’s cricket title that had eluded them to date. It was India’s second consecutive defeat in the WTC finals.