AHMEDABAD: In a stinging reversal of fortunes, the record-setting Indian team finally had its tryst with the law of statistics at the worst possible moment against an Australian team that upped its game in all departments. India was out-bowled, out-fielded and out-batted comprehensively, and lost the ICC Men’s ODI World Cup on Sunday night.

The player of the match was Travis Head, who smashed a sensational century (137) to snuff out any hopes that Team India – and millions of fans – had, getting out when the team needed merely two runs more. The final score read just as it should: Australia defeated India by six wickets, with 42 balls remaining. Chasing 241, Australia got off to a blistering start smashing 15 runs in the very first over bowled by Jasprit Bumrah. But Mohammed Shami, the man with the magical arm for India in this World Cup, removed David Warner in the second over with a swinging delivery that carried the nick to Virat Kohli in the slips.

The crowd roared once again as Bumrah dismissed Marsh in the fifth over, reducing Australia to 41/2. In his next over, Bumrah struck once again with a peach of a delivery that caught Steve Smith in front of the stumps. The impact was outside the stump but the batter did not review the decision, leaving Australia at 47/3 in the seventh over.

That was the last time that India was present in the match.

On the one end was Head, who played a positive innings that quickly took the match out of India’s grasp. Head became just the second player to hit a century while chasing in a World Cup final. On display at the other end was a starkly different approach by Marnus Labuschagne, who played a sluggish innings scoring 58 in 110 balls.

But together they scored 192 runs off 215 balls, a mammoth partnership given the context of the game.

Australia, which started its World Cup campaign with two straight losses, bounced back with seven wins in the league phase before winning the semi-final against South Africa in Kolkata. After Sunday, it has won the men’s ODI World Cup crown six times, having previously triumphed in 1987, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2015.

In the pre-match press conference, Australia’s captain Pat Cummins said there would be nothing sweeter than silencing a capacity home crowd. That’s exactly what the Aussies did to the record crowd at the Narendra Modi Stadium.