Tuesday 5 April 2011

CHAMPIONS !!!!!

Indian Cricket team finally broke the jinx and won the Cricket World Cup 2011, after 28 years. The last victory had come in 1983 under the captaincy of Kapil Dev - the legendary All rounder.

The Road Traveled

The team started as the hot favorites to win, with the Cup happening on home soil and the team in great flow. This brought immense pressure on the team to perform and deliver, even more so, with India being a cricket-crazy nation. The fans did not seem to want anything less than the cup.

India started well from the first game itself against Bangladesh. The tied-match against England gave them a wake-up call and came at the right time. In that match India batted first and scored a handsome 337, but England chased well and exposed the Indian chinks, to tie the match.


In the quarter finals, India met Australia, the defending champions. The blues of 2003 final, where Australia walloped India, came rushing back to every ones mind. Will it be a repeat? Can India pull it off? With some sensational batting by Yuvraj and great work by everyone else, India won and made to Semi-final.

In the semi-final, India met Pakistan. The record before that match was that India had defeated Pakistan on all 4 occasions. Will Pakistan break the jinx and turn the tables. They were coming into the Semis backed by Shahid Afridi's great leadership and personal form. The match at Mohali was finally won by India. And India stormed into the finals!!

In the finals, India overcame some anxious moments to overcome Sri Lanka and lifted the WORLD CUP!!

The Indians were CHAMPIONS!!!

The Team

What stood out was that some player or the other delivered during the crunch situations. Each member seemed to be hungry for success and the team was not looking to just one or two players to see them home.


During league phases, Yuvraj was in his elements and contributed with both bat and ball. Dhoni and Gambhir came good when required in the finals when India had lost Sehwag and Sachin and were reeling at 31-2. Nehra, who was hit aplenty against South Africa bowled well against Pakistan. Zaheer was the mainstay all through and was doing his work and providing crucial wickets. Raina, Virat - the young guns were good in fielding and saved many a run and also shone with the bats. They batted according to the situations and belied their young ages. Ashwin gave a good account of himself. Dhoni led from front and made many a bold decisions which seem to pay off.

All in all a great team work saw India home. Do consider the fact that they started as favorites, were playing at home and had the expectations of 1.2 billion Indians and many more all over the world. With so much pressure, it was great to see the team deliver. Hats off guys !!

The Coaching and Support staff also did their bit and ran the show from the background. Coach Gary Kirsten and his team did well.

By the way, I feel that the team started its journey under Saurav Ganguly who made them believe that they could be aggressive and can show it too..the journey culminated under Dhoni with the World Cup in their hands. Thoughts?

3 comments:

Navneet Sharma said...

Win was a total team game, Nobody expected Dhoni to rise to the occasion and perform in the Final match, But he did.

Kudos to the entire team.

Regards
Navneet

Navneet Sharma said...

Waiting for your blog on Mahesh and Paes regaining Number 1 Spot in world ranking in Doubles.

regards
Navneet sharma

http://navneetsharmasblog.blogspot.com

RN said...

A new post on the Indian Express is here. Do check it out :-)