For a country torn by strife, corruption & inflation, the World Cup victory came as a manna from the Heaven. The path was not easy. For the better part of the tournament our bowling looked fidgety, our batting collapsed at crucial times in the league matches & fielding was never considered our forte.
But as Dhoni said it, it was necessary that the team peaked at the right time. The pieces started falling into the right places as we progressed through the quarterfinals when we vanquished Ponting’s men. It was a test of nerves from then on. The best part of the victory was that it was a team effort in the real sense. Consider this, Sehwag hit a rollicking 175 in the first match & then a 73 in another match; Yuvraj put an allround performance to clinch the Man of the tournament award; Zaheer was the joint leading wicket taker; Sachin was the 2nd highest run-getter; Gambhir & Dhoni clicked at the right time.
No praise would be too high for Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for he had to contend with the sceptics in the public & armchair critics who revelled in pulling down the team. The electronic media in keeping with its notorious reputation of “anything for TRP” was at its sensational best wildly swinging from heaping praises on one occasion to showering the brickbats on the other. The semi-final & Final were more a test of who handled the pressure better & the men in blue did not come a cropper in doing so. The winning six by the captain was a resounding slap to all his detractors & the steely resolve in his eyes while hitting it could be felt by all sensitive persons.
The wild scenes in the streets all over the country after the historic win confirmed that cricket is indeed a unifying force in this country though the so-called cricket diplomacy failed miserably. The entire tournament was however, efficiently managed.. A lot of us are lucky to witness our World Cup triumph twice in our lifetime. Here is wishing for some more in our remaining lives.
On behalf of NOINO, I congratulate the Indian team who has done us proud by winning the World Cup.
Ganesh Kamath
GS, NOINO
No comments:
Post a Comment