Australia beat India to win cricket World Test Championship

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

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

Needing to score 280 runs on the final day on Sunday to overhaul the mammoth 444 victory target set by Australia, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane were cheered all the way to the pitch as they came out to resume India’s second innings on 164-3.

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 top-ranked team for 234 and wrap up the victory before the lunch break.

In the seventh over of the day, Kohli edged fast bowler Boland to a great catch at second slip by Steve Smith and was gone for 49. Boland got Ravindra Jadeja in the same over.

India chased the match since the first morning and the demise of Kohli confirmed it was a matter of when, not if, Australia would become the first-time world test champions.

Rahane, on 20 overnight, reached 46 when he edged Starc behind and began a collapse of the last five India wickets in the 30 minutes before scheduled lunch.