India Are The Champions

In a wonderful final whose script was more off-Broadway than Bollywood, India lifted the ICC World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbia after achieving the highest run chase in any World Cup Final. Symbolically for India, it was not their aging established stars Sehwag and Tendulkar who took the game in the chase but the new breed who have coalesced around their nucleus to form new pearls for the sub continental power house. Gambir, Dhoni, Kohli and Yuvraj were all superb in their own ways.

Ponting and Hilditch in their linear world, are dumb to irony, otherwise they would understand that the former skipper's claims of emulation of the Little Master are about to be dealt a staggering blow. Tendulkar's announcements are coming soon and Ponting could have done well to have accepted his fate and gone out a champion. His timing has never been more astray.

Sri Lanka won the toss, eventually, after Sangakkara's call was consumed by the din of an excited pre-match crowd and not heard by match officials. A second toss also went his way and he took first use of what looked a fine batting track. So it proved but the questions at the toss were not of how deep Tony Grieg might plunge his key into the surface but rather the changes to the Sri Lankan side. With Murali playing on half a leg and under deep distress in order just to be there, it was a remarkable decision to omit both Herath and Mendis, especially the latter.

Sri Lanka did everything right in setting India a total after making a slow start against Zaheer Khan, who's spell of 4-3-2-1 at the start of the innings and again mid-innings, put the hobbles on their momentum. After Thurunga went early, Dilshan and Sangakkara put their hard hats on and went about Bob The Buildering the innings but it was Mahela Jayawardene who again dripped class all over the Mumbai venue. How many times have we seen him come to the crease and play an innings of Test class inside the fifty over allotment? Every four was a sumptuous course in the overall banquet and if this isn't the best batsman in the world, he is at least among those fighting for the naming rights. At the end, just as when only a short stretch on the highway is available to overtake a B-double, he accelerated like the Ferrari he is, smoothly and without any ugly movement. Kulasekara and Perera, in the final moments, provided the ugly stick at the other end, the grunt which is so attractive for the Twenty20 crowd. Their's were paintings for the Picasso set, bits and pieces dashed on everywhere, whilst Jayawardene daubed the last strokes of a Monet.

Zaheer was flogged in his final few overs to ruin an otherwise productive day. Harbharjan and Yuvraj were reasonable but could not contain as they would have wanted and India was again a collection of all sorts with the ball.

274 should have been enough after Sehwag was lbw to the second ball of the innings. Malinga sent one across him and then bowled a ball which bent back at him late and deceived the batsmen into playing the wrong line. Sehwag missed it and his pads prevented middle stump from being cartwheeled. When the Jo Hansford pin up boy had Tendulkar edging to a diving Sangakkar in the seventh over, a nation was stunned. This was not the way it was written, surely?

At 2-31, the new India began the refit. Gambhir and Kohli put their heads down and went about the task. Malinga was off for a spell, a happenstance much in their favour but they kept the scoreboard moving with some fours and many singles and in doing so they combined survival with 5 runs an over. It was a surprise when Kohli lost control of a drive intended for long on in the 22nd over and Dilshan, the part time off spinner, took a screaming return catch way to his right. India were at a crossroads and where so often in the past a Laxman or Dravid or Tendulkar was standing there making deals, it was only the newer men to be seen. Six were needed from each of the last 28 overs of this long World Cup campaign.

At such a point, champions usually make their appearance and so it was that India's captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni strode to the crease, having elevated himself in the batting order in order to take charge of the game. Second ball he may have been stumped but even if Sangakkara had taken it, he would have needed Bert Oldfield's reflexes to tipple the bails. Dhoni pushed singles - ten of them before his first four - against Dilshan and Muralitharan who probed like dentists on a discovery tour of rotten molars. With Gambhir in support they gradually took the game from Sir Lanka creating 109 runs in twenty overs. Gambhir broke the spell in the most uncharacteristic manner, rushing down the pitch to Perera for wild crowd pleasing slog and missing. If its possible to forgive such craziness, Gambhir had played the innings of the Final and had he secured three more runs and left with more decorum, his name would have been on the Man of the Match silverware. In truth, it still should be.

Yuvraj joined his captain and did what he has done all tournament, adding 54 for the victory. In the final overs, Dhoni was rampant against the quicker men who had returned to crash or crash through. He smashed Perera for six over point, Malinga for fours past square leg twice and Kulasekara over long off for four and then, a match winning six over long on.

India, for some time now the emerging super power of world cricket, completed the transformation with a Bollywood ending when Dhoni danced down the pitch. With money, power, the best Test team in the world and now the World Cup, any colonial thoughts of the power base being with the creators of the game in England or the dominators of the game since the mid 1990's Australia, are as far fetched as they are far gone. The best of the story lies in how the Final was won and the strengths Indian cricket has gained from having established stars comfortable in their own skins and younger players who have been allowed to mature inside the team.

Much also needs to be understood about the power of good leadership. Our new man should be given tapes to watch of the good ones on the field, at press conferences and in consultation with their players. Three to start with would be MS Dhoni, Shahid Afridi and Andrew Strauss. Don't look to the past Big Dog, look to the future.