India Triumphs!!

The young guns have done it for India. After almost 2 decades, the Indian cricket team, has brought home, the coveted World Cup, albeit, of a shorter, more action-packed, so to speak, version of this sport.

The just concluded T-20 World Cup, saw an unlikely team emerge as champions. Yes, for once, our boys have ‘snatched’ victory from the jaws of ‘ defeat’ and not the other way around. And they achieved this feat, without their stalwarts around..i.e. Sachin, Rahul and Saurav .

To put things into perspective, ICC, having woken up from the slumber, realized, that a new generation (read X- generation) of audience, just isn’t ready to sit thru a 50-over per side cricket match. The game has to evolve and suit the palate of a generation, which thrives on right-here-right-now!! And they had to produce something special, to get the advertising fraternity back to this “love of the nation”.

Thus was born, T-20! A Format of the modern day one-day cricket, which is crisper, faster, provides a adrenalin- rushing, edge-of-the-seat excitement, which you get to see, in a game of soccer or the likes. It’s a batsman game. The audience is hungry for those “ huge” sixes and back-to-back boundaries. This initiative, has redefined the contours of a game, which, till a decade back, was the preserve of the purists.

And India, where, cricket is practically a religion, this sport, already had won over a legion of followers and brought back hordes of old-timers. All this augurs well for the sport. And the superb and much deserved-victory of the Indian team, in the first ever T-20 world cup, has brought about a sense of collective pride in the lovers of this game in this country.

This team of young guns, with no prior reputation to protect and nothing to lose, played some exhilarating cricket. Under the captaincy of the newly-appionted M.S Dhoni, this team delivered against all odds. A mixture of youthful exuberance, skilful captaincy, measured aggression, and do-or-die attitude, saw these ‘green horns’ reproduce the magic of that golden chapter in India’s cricketing history, 1983!

Is this victory a harbinger of change?! Is the old guard willing to step aside and give the ‘young blood’ their chance to bask in the glory and establish India as a world-class team in the cricketing arena?!
Only time will tell…….