They Came, They Saw, They Conquered Monday, Sep 24 2007

The Men in Blue did it for India. India has won the first ICC 20-20 Cricket World Cup Championship. Click here to watch the final over of the finals

One needs a fire inside to win, and Indian team definitely had that fire as was visible throughout the tournament. Nobody dreamed that India would make it even to the finals. THEY CAME without much noise and fanfare. A young side with a relatively new captain. There were no big names in the team like Sachin, Ganguly or Dravid! They were just kids, nanne munnhe pyaare bacche

A team effort and a wonderful captainship is what is required for a team to win. And Indian team had that wonderful team spirit and an able leadership of the boy from Ranchi, M S Dhoni. The team continuously reevaluated the options and made necessary changes throughout all the initial matches. And that’s when THEY SAW an opportunity lying out there.

And that’s when they started to turn things around. Look at the beauty with which India made a comeback!

First, Yuvraj Singh set the tone with his six sixers in a single over in the match against England! Advertisity cause some men to break, others to break records! Yuvraj was THE tough man, and England got a taste of his toughness.

Six consecutive sixes by Yuvaraj against England

Next, by defeating South Africa which till then had never been defeated in this tournament they caused a major upset in the tournament. South Africa were shocked when Indians knocked them out of the tournament! South Africa had the additional advantage of being the host team, as the matches were being played in South Africa.

Then, an even bigger upset was caused by Indians when they defeated Australia in the semi finals. In fact Pakistan atleast gave a good fight in the finals against India. But Australians were hit for lots of great sixers by the Indian batsmen, and the Indian bowlers kept Australian batsmen wondering how to take runs! I think that the turning point in this match was the wicket of the Australian batsman Andrew Symonds who was proving to be dangerous to India.

Nobody expected that a relatively inexperienced India would win against the mighty Australia. The truth is, Amateurs built the ark, but professionals built the titanic

Stunning catch by the Indian player Dinesh Kartik in the match against Aussies

Indian batsman Yuvraj Singh hit the Aussie bowler Bret Lee for the longest six in the tournament

Finally, the grand final, a high voltage match that contained almost every possible combination of spice and anxiety of cricket. It was another typical Indo-Pak cricket match. The cup kept oscillating, sometimes in favor India and sometimes in favor of Pakistan. Indians kept their cool, Dhoni played with all his cards kept close to his chest, and finally THEY CONQUERED. Indians proved that success is failure turned inside out

I feel that the decision to send in Joginder Sharma to bowl in the last over against both Australia and Pakistan were master strokes by Dhoni. He has proved that he has a great cricket brain to be a successful captain. A captain who takes well calculated risks. He probably knows that those who are afraid to fall will never fly!

The dream of this 20-20 world cup trophy designer Amit Pabuwal from Jaipur, India came true with the trophy he designed being brought back home by the Indian team.

20-20 Hindi News glimpses about the final match

The Jharkhand Government (Dhoni belongs to Jharkand state) has announced that Captain Dhoni will be given the first Jharkand Ratna award. BCCI, the cricket board of India has announced 2 million dollars of cash price to the Indian team!

Indians also maintained the record that till to date Pakistan has NEVER defeated India in any world cup cricket match

But look at the statement which Paksitani captain Shoaib Malik made after loosing the match. He said “First of all I’d like to thank people back home and the Muslims around the world. We gave our 100%“. Now what the heck is this of bringing religion into sports? Whatever it meant, an extremely unprofessional comment.

Actually with just 6 runs required in 5 balls in the last over, the match could have gone either ways. But the major disadvantage for pakistan was that it had no more wickets to spend, and Indians wonderfully made use of that fact! Infact the match was actually won because Indians kept taking pakistani wickets at regular intervals, and this made it possible to India to defend a score that was not really that big. Sending out Afridi for a duck who tried to be aggressive as soon as he came was another major turning point in the game. Probably Afridi thought that he will do another Yuvaraj on Austrialia

Click here to watch the final over of the finals.

Below are few glimpses from today’s India-Pakistan finals. Chak De India! Who needs a coach now?

A sixer by the Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir

A direct hit by the Indian fielder Rohit Sharma

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50-50 version of 20-20 Saturday, Sep 15 2007

After a long time I was glued to the television yesterday to watch the India Pakistan cricket match of the 20-20 world cup

As always, India Pakistan cricket matches have their own flavor of thrill, suspense, emotions, excitement, a nail biting finish and what not!

This is the first 20-20 cricket world cup, where the number of overs bowled is just 20, instead of the usual one day limit of 50 overs. Thanks to this 20-20 series, cricket has become a quick game like football where the results come pretty soon instead of having to waste an entire day on the game. Cricket as a game has evolved from the test matches (which I felt were like stretched out chewing gums with rare results) to the one dayers and now to the 20-20.

Indians who started off batting first in this match had a disastrous start but recovered well thanks to the brilliant performance by Robin Uttappa. India put up a score of 141 runs in 20 overs.

Then once Pakistan started batting, India was all set to win but things took a sudden U turn after Pakistani batsmen played some good shots. Now, Pakistan was all set to win, and one could see the cheer of Pakistani supporters in the stadium. At that point of time if you had said that Pakistan cant win the match, then you would have looked stupid! But Cricket like any other sport is a game of high uncertainty, and the quantum mechanical principle worked here. The more accurately you know the required number of runs to win, the less you know about the actual result

Srishanth who bowled the last over ensured that Bowling matters. He looked like a Planck’s Constant to me! In the last ball, Pakistan required one run to win and instead got a run out! The match was a tie!! 50-50!!

And thats when the real fun started. As per the rules of 20-20, in case of a tie then the bowlers of each team alternatively will be given a chance to bowl straight on to the stumps, and there wont be any batsman as such. You bowl right on to the stumps and you get a point. 5 bowlers from both sides alternately have to bowl. The side which gets maximum points wins the game. Much like a penalty shootout in football (soccer).

This is where the Pakistani bowlers crumbled like a pack of cards under pressure. While all first three Indian bowlers bowled straight on to the wicket, all three Pakistani bowlers missed the target! India won the match 3-0. Haha, now cricket scores have started looking like a football score!

So, India emerged victorious. More importantly, India maintained its one day world cup record against Pakistan even in this 20-20 world cup, which is, till today Pakistan has never defeated India in a world cup cricket match

Great Going India. All the Best for our Men in Blue for future matches in this world cup.

Below is the tie breaker “Bowl Out” that took place after the match ended in a tie.

The highlights of the Indian batting

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