Why India Won The World Cup
Newly crowned ODI World Champions India were always the favourites to lift the trophy. That was something the team planned for well in advance and the fans expected victory from the very beginning, nothing less.
The reactions haven’t stopped following from the moment MS Dhoni lifted the gold-silver plated trophy. The players partied until early on Sunday morning, before their itineraries took a new shape, this time one worthy of champions. And the remaining one billion people streamed into their offices on Monday morning, hung over and tired from all the jubilation that poured into every street of this vast and wide country.
It however wasn’t as easy as it might have seemed when Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir were smashing Muttiah Muralitharan and company all over the Wankhede Stadium. It has been one long and winding road, with its fair shares of crests and troughs. And although the press conference after the final might have been a pleasant one, throughout the journey, there were questions galore. Selection of the first eleven out of fifteen is the basic point of any such tournament and the lengthy group stage did test the patience of everyone watching.
India’s bowling prowess was always their weak line, never mind the fielding aspect. There would be days when the team would save the extra runs or leak more than they normally should, for their luck on the field would always oscillate between these two extremes. But the bowling would be a worry, not because they didn’t have the firepower in terms of talent, pace or spin. It was down to individualistic worries pertaining to each bowler in their pack. Harbhajan Singh seemed off the boil despite his escapades in South Africa, Piyush Chawla was too inconsistent and Ravichandran Ashwin was a raw, unknown quantity. Ashish Nehra and Munaf Patel are much the same like Chawla while Sreesanth brings forth his own brand of mercurial to the table. Only Zaheer Khan seemed a surety for wickets, and that was if he stayed fit enough.
Somehow, someway, all of it worked out. Nehra and Patel gave away some runs, saved some and picked wickets at crucial intervals. Chawla rightly didn’t see the light beyond the group matches and Ashwin excelled in the one knock-out he played. Sreesanth proved to be a good luck charm at both the starting and finishing points, while Zaheer packed in the work load of all of them and more. Even Bhajji chipped in with wickets at the most opportune moments, and though an in-form spin spearhead was missing, Yuvraj Singh stepped up to the plate. It proved to be a bowling attack that would have made the quarter-final in anybody’s book. For they might have never looked worth winning the tournament to either Dean Jones or Ian Botham at one stage, they never looked like getting knocked out early either.
Their loss to South Africa and that tied game against England were both matches riddled with mistakes. Yet they gained a point off them, and the rest were never going to cause much trouble. Bangladesh were shown their place early and West Indies brushed aside comfortably.
That last league match at Chennai though was a turning point of sorts. While Ashwin did play in this match, two very important points came forth: Yuvraj, Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina formed a triangular partnership on the field which created enough pressure to strangle the scoring, and in turn, Dhoni shuffled his bowlers around well enough to keep the batsmen guessing. It was almost as if the Indian skipper had laid down his winning cards.
Newly crowned ODI World Champions India were always the favourites to lift the trophy. That was something the team planned for well in advance and the fans expected victory from the very beginning, nothing less.
The reactions haven’t stopped following from the moment MS Dhoni lifted the gold-silver plated trophy. The players partied until early on Sunday morning, before their itineraries took a new shape, this time one worthy of champions. And the remaining one billion people streamed into their offices on Monday morning, hung over and tired from all the jubilation that poured into every street of this vast and wide country.
It however wasn’t as easy as it might have seemed when Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir were smashing Muttiah Muralitharan and company all over the Wankhede Stadium. It has been one long and winding road, with its fair shares of crests and troughs. And although the press conference after the final might have been a pleasant one, throughout the journey, there were questions galore. Selection of the first eleven out of fifteen is the basic point of any such tournament and the lengthy group stage did test the patience of everyone watching.
India’s bowling prowess was always their weak line, never mind the fielding aspect. There would be days when the team would save the extra runs or leak more than they normally should, for their luck on the field would always oscillate between these two extremes. But the bowling would be a worry, not because they didn’t have the firepower in terms of talent, pace or spin. It was down to individualistic worries pertaining to each bowler in their pack. Harbhajan Singh seemed off the boil despite his escapades in South Africa, Piyush Chawla was too inconsistent and Ravichandran Ashwin was a raw, unknown quantity. Ashish Nehra and Munaf Patel are much the same like Chawla while Sreesanth brings forth his own brand of mercurial to the table. Only Zaheer Khan seemed a surety for wickets, and that was if he stayed fit enough.
Somehow, someway, all of it worked out. Nehra and Patel gave away some runs, saved some and picked wickets at crucial intervals. Chawla rightly didn’t see the light beyond the group matches and Ashwin excelled in the one knock-out he played. Sreesanth proved to be a good luck charm at both the starting and finishing points, while Zaheer packed in the work load of all of them and more. Even Bhajji chipped in with wickets at the most opportune moments, and though an in-form spin spearhead was missing, Yuvraj Singh stepped up to the plate. It proved to be a bowling attack that would have made the quarter-final in anybody’s book. For they might have never looked worth winning the tournament to either Dean Jones or Ian Botham at one stage, they never looked like getting knocked out early either.
Their loss to South Africa and that tied game against England were both matches riddled with mistakes. Yet they gained a point off them, and the rest were never going to cause much trouble. Bangladesh were shown their place early and West Indies brushed aside comfortably.
That last league match at Chennai though was a turning point of sorts. While Ashwin did play in this match, two very important points came forth: Yuvraj, Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina formed a triangular partnership on the field which created enough pressure to strangle the scoring, and in turn, Dhoni shuffled his bowlers around well enough to keep the batsmen guessing. It was almost as if the Indian skipper had laid down his winning cards.
No comments:
Post a Comment