By Prabhjot Singh
When the Indian cricket team was crowned with the T20 World Cup title on Saturday, every person of Indian origin, irrespective of his place of domicile, felt proud as if he or she had been the winner. Such is the spirit associated and identified with success at the global level.
After Hardik Pandya bowled his sixth and last ball of the third over to give India a splendid and historic win over South Africa by seven runs, the global Indians burst into celebrations. Music, dance, fireworks, and victory processions hoisting tricolours dotted the globe. Experts, players, and fans of the game “hailed this victory that Men in Blue snatched from the jaws of a certain defeat.” The team spirit was emancipated by brilliant individual performances that scripted success on the playfield of Kingston Oval in Barbados.
India has been doing well in cricket. Last year it made it to the finals of World Cups in both Tests and ODIs. Unfortunately, it lost both to Australia. It was the third World Cup final in its shortest and the latest format in which it triumphed. Incidentally, India earned the distinction of making the World Cup finals in all three formats.
Led by Rohit Sharma, the Indian team emerged unscathed from the gruelling 55-match marquee event held jointly by the USA and West Indies. It won all its games except for the one against Canada which was abandoned without a single ball bowled. India enjoyed complete supremacy. Some members of the winning team figured high on the outstanding individual performance lists.
history of producing the best spinners in the world. There was a time when this South Asian nation had the best spin trio comprising BS Chandrasekhar, EAS Prasanna and Bishan Bedi. Before them was Jassu Patel who created a record when he had the powerful Kangaroos struggling against spinning tosses at Kanpur. Then there was S. Venkatraghvan, a great exponent of spin bowling. Then came Maninder Singh and Harbhajan Singh. Following the footsteps of great stalwarts, the present Indian team has some of the best spin bowlers in R. Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yajuvendra Chahal and even Ravindra Jadeja.
tournament, included Suryakumar Yadav, who had two 50s to his credit, Shivam Dube, and wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant. Suryakumar Yadav would be long remembered for his stupendous catch that dismissed David Miller off Hardik Pandya to convert defeat into victory for India in the gold medal match.
