The Cup That Counts

So here it is finally. We won. Unbelievable scenes all around the country and even two days after the win, it is yet to sink in for many. I was 4 years old when we won the cup in 1983. That was when black and white TV was up to date and only the privileged few had a TV set. I have absolutely no memory of anyone mentioning anything or celebrating that victory in 1983. Now 28 years later, I have memories that are going to last me a lifetime. India deserved to win.

Dhoni has been dashing as a captain and an even greater risk taker with his decision making. In the end it paid off. He has easily displaced Ganguly as the most successful captain. Under him we won the T20 world cup, became the no: 1 test nation and even ripped apart Australia in Australia, and now the world cup itself. The media has even referred to him as the man with the Midas touch, keeping in mind that he made CSK the winners in IPL last season and even went one better on the world stage by winning the Champions league. It does not get better for him.

Having said that, we were not without our share of hiccups, blunders and luck. During the early stage of the tournament, our bowlers struggled to bowl out even the weaker teams. We did not win by a huge margin. Even the game against England where we scored huge, we should have won. During the middle stages, our lower middle order and tail collapsed faster than a deck of cards. Dhoni was criticized for his team selection when he omitted Ashwin. I still believe Ashwin would have been a better bet than Chawla or even Nehra, but in the end, we still made it through, so the brickbats might be spared this time. We are an unforgiving nation, aren't we? The lowest point for me was of course the performance of Sreesanth. Zero contribution.

Another high point for me was Sachin. That guy deserves a post all to himself, but that's later. What a journey it has been for him and yes, I totally agree when most of the players said that the cup was won FOR Sachin. After all he has done, he deserves it. The icing on the cake would have been his 100th century, had he reached there.

So where do we go from here? They say that once you reach the top, the only way forward is DOWN. True, maybe, but we can prolong our stay at the top for a while. We can keep the momentum going. With this win, we probably have enough confidence to keep ourselves going and play like champions. Hopefully this Indian dominance will last for a few years, maybe even beyond the next world cup.

On a lighter note, got this joke in my inbox this morning. "Two Sri Lankans were seen sipping tea out of a saucer. When asked why, one of them said that the Indians took the cup"