Former Indian captain Kapil Dev revealed on Sunday that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did not invite him for the ICC World Cup 2023 final at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, India.
Australia, looking for their sixth World Cup, is playing the in-form and undefeated India, who eye their first ICC trophy since 2013, in front of more than 130,000 spectators at the biggest stadium in the world.
Dev, who led India to their maiden World Cup triumph in 1983 by beating the mighty West Indies side eyeing their third consecutive title, was not invited by the BCCI to watch the biggest cricket match.
“I wasn’t invited there. They didn’t call me so I did not go. As simple as that. I wanted the whole ’83 team to be there with me but I guess due to the fact that it’s such a big event and people are so busy handling responsibilities, sometimes they forget,” Dev said when asked why he wasn’t there in the final.
There were reports that the BCCI would invite all the world cup-winning captains and honour them during the innings break.
India set Australia a target of 241 runs in the final after being all out in 50 overs.
Earlier, Australia captain Pat Cummins won the toss and elected to field first against India.
India won the World Cup in 1983 and then again on home soil in 2011.
Rohit Sharma´s India have won all their 10 matches at the tournament and retain the winning XI from their 70-run semi-final win over New Zealand in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Rohit said he would have opted to bat first had he won the toss.
Playing XIs
Australia: Travis Head, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Josh Inglis (wk), Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj