World Cup dream fulfilled finally
Its been a long time I have written anything on sports. However, after the Indian victory in the first T20 World Cup, I thought I had to key down my thoughts.
For starters, its the first Twenty-Twenty tournament of such a massive scale organized by ICC. And we could not have a fitting start to this. When we the World Cup campaign, we were very jittery to say the least, because we have not played too many twenty-twenty matches before this. We had no expectation whatsoever. And when we started with a washed out with Scotland and scored a moderate 140 with Pakistan and won in a bowl-out, we thought both of us from the subcontinent do not deserve to be in the next round. Our belief was confirmed when we lost to New Zealand. From then on, it was a do-or-die situation, a position from where we really do find ourselves playing at our best. We beat England, the mighty South-Africans, we reached the semis. There we beat another mighty team, the Australians.
On the other side, Pakistan's journey was also similar. Considered an under'dog' (that too stray), they came very well after the first defeat with us. They defeated the router in the Sri-Lankans, the Aussies and the fighting Bangladeshis in Super Eight, New Zealand in the semis. Hence their journey after their tour started with a controversy, courtesy Shoaib Akhtar and Md. Asif, has been full of positives. However, from the start, they were always rueful about the fact that they have been unable to beat India in any World Cup match. Hence, they were charged up considerably thinking about their first probable win in a World Cup match with us.
Then came the big match on a wet Monday afternoon here in Kolkata. It had been raining cats and dogs for the last two days which gave us a natural excuse of not being able to make it to work that day. Even those who somehow made it to office reached home by time... not a ball could have been missed with arch rivals meeting each other at such a huge stage for the first time. The game was played with the right spirit with lots of good performances from us... Gautam Gambhir - the silent killer, who held the batting together is my man of the match; in the bowling, R.P. Singh, Irfan Pathan bowled really well. Sreesanth had a bad day but thats acceptable keeping an eye on his performance the last match. We all expected Yuvraj to fire, but he was stopped with some handsome thinking from the Pakistani skipper. Rohit Sharma is certainly a find of the series, he has been keeping his head cool even at stressful conditions and has given us runs most of the times. Pakistan also has a cool head in Misbah-ul-Haq, making a comeback to his team after ages. He has played really well under trying circumstances, but just fell short of win in the last over. There is a joke doing rounds in the newspapers:"- Knock-knock- Whose there?- Misbah- Misbah who?- Miss ba 5 runs"
In the end, we as a better team, won the match and the tournament. Though the remark by Shoaib Malik created a furore at the presentation ceremony, the whole tournament has been wonderfully arranged and the cheer boys-n-girls have been a revelation.
The biggest find of the very successful series has been M.S.Dhoni's captainship, which has pleasantly surprised all of us including the experts. Even the great Sachin remarks: "Indian cricket team is in safe hands".
A few facts worth mentioning here:Pakistan has won all the crunch matches at Johannesburg (other than the final) and we won the important matches in Durban.Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan (as we call him) has become an unofficial brand ambassador to all kind of sports because since his film 'Chak De India' released, as we have been winning every in all kind of sports, be it hockey (Asian Cup), football (Nehru Cup) or cricket (T20 WC) and the title song of the film has become next to our national song, played in every sporting arena.
For starters, its the first Twenty-Twenty tournament of such a massive scale organized by ICC. And we could not have a fitting start to this. When we the World Cup campaign, we were very jittery to say the least, because we have not played too many twenty-twenty matches before this. We had no expectation whatsoever. And when we started with a washed out with Scotland and scored a moderate 140 with Pakistan and won in a bowl-out, we thought both of us from the subcontinent do not deserve to be in the next round. Our belief was confirmed when we lost to New Zealand. From then on, it was a do-or-die situation, a position from where we really do find ourselves playing at our best. We beat England, the mighty South-Africans, we reached the semis. There we beat another mighty team, the Australians.
On the other side, Pakistan's journey was also similar. Considered an under'dog' (that too stray), they came very well after the first defeat with us. They defeated the router in the Sri-Lankans, the Aussies and the fighting Bangladeshis in Super Eight, New Zealand in the semis. Hence their journey after their tour started with a controversy, courtesy Shoaib Akhtar and Md. Asif, has been full of positives. However, from the start, they were always rueful about the fact that they have been unable to beat India in any World Cup match. Hence, they were charged up considerably thinking about their first probable win in a World Cup match with us.
Then came the big match on a wet Monday afternoon here in Kolkata. It had been raining cats and dogs for the last two days which gave us a natural excuse of not being able to make it to work that day. Even those who somehow made it to office reached home by time... not a ball could have been missed with arch rivals meeting each other at such a huge stage for the first time. The game was played with the right spirit with lots of good performances from us... Gautam Gambhir - the silent killer, who held the batting together is my man of the match; in the bowling, R.P. Singh, Irfan Pathan bowled really well. Sreesanth had a bad day but thats acceptable keeping an eye on his performance the last match. We all expected Yuvraj to fire, but he was stopped with some handsome thinking from the Pakistani skipper. Rohit Sharma is certainly a find of the series, he has been keeping his head cool even at stressful conditions and has given us runs most of the times. Pakistan also has a cool head in Misbah-ul-Haq, making a comeback to his team after ages. He has played really well under trying circumstances, but just fell short of win in the last over. There is a joke doing rounds in the newspapers:"- Knock-knock- Whose there?- Misbah- Misbah who?- Miss ba 5 runs"
In the end, we as a better team, won the match and the tournament. Though the remark by Shoaib Malik created a furore at the presentation ceremony, the whole tournament has been wonderfully arranged and the cheer boys-n-girls have been a revelation.
The biggest find of the very successful series has been M.S.Dhoni's captainship, which has pleasantly surprised all of us including the experts. Even the great Sachin remarks: "Indian cricket team is in safe hands".
A few facts worth mentioning here:Pakistan has won all the crunch matches at Johannesburg (other than the final) and we won the important matches in Durban.Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan (as we call him) has become an unofficial brand ambassador to all kind of sports because since his film 'Chak De India' released, as we have been winning every in all kind of sports, be it hockey (Asian Cup), football (Nehru Cup) or cricket (T20 WC) and the title song of the film has become next to our national song, played in every sporting arena.