I am writing this post before all my emotions get soaked up.
I proudly say India are “ICC Cricket World Cup 2011” winners and we are WORLD CHAMPIONS.
This is not an unbelievable victory, but a Challenging, well-fought and we thoroughly deserve it. Whole India would take this victory and we played like Champions.
There are lot of things to learn from this Victory. One thing that stands out is Self-Belief the team has exhibited. Indian Team always had the right talent. But what lacked in the previous team is their in-ablility to Handle the pressure at crunch situations, and often failed to cross the finish line. With two wickets of Big stalwars Sehwag and Sachin down in Final, most of us thought, this might be a repeat of 2003 WC finals. But the script was different.
If at all you want to know what does “Play your natural game” mean in cricketing world, You have to watch Gautam Gambhir & Virat’s game. They believed in their potential. They not only ensured that there are further fall of wickets at that moment, but they picked up the singles and two’s rotating the strike which is what the situation demanded.
Know your Opponents – As Dhoni said, If India would have lost the final, then our strong media would have tormented him for not allowing Yuvraj to come ahead of him. He gave a pure cricketing reason, where they were two off spinners at that time, with one of them being World’s BEST Off spinner. Tell me, Who other than Dhoni can play them well, with having an advantage of knowing / playing Muralidaran plenty of time in nets as he was his Chennai Super King’s mate. (If at all IPL had done something good for Indian Cricket, then it must be the opportunity to play along with the players who would be your opponents of your national side). Also, Hats-Off to Dhoni for raising his hands when occasion demands and despite the fact that he was not in Best of form, he had the courage to get into the middle to Face the Challenge & Lead from Front.
Team Work – There was the days when we would switch off the TVs as soon as Sachin Tendulkar got out. It has all changed with this current Indian Team & everyone believe that they have the potential to win the match one a given day. Each one was given a designated role to play which is vital in any team.
Beat the Best – Sri Lanka by far was the Best team of the tournament and we are glad that we defeated them to attain the World champions. Australia and Pakistan were strong but they had their weaknesses, where the former had unidimensional bowling attack, with their batsman susceptible to spin, while the latter were known to bogged down to pressure, also they had in-experienced batting line-up. Sri Lankans are well-known for their cunningness, they often pull out a surprise weapon in the crunch games like the Finals. ( still remember, Ajanta mendis the then mystery bowler was kept aside in the pre-final game in Asia Cup, which proved to be smart in that Finals as he rattled the Indian batting line up by taking 6 wickets). However, they surprised everyone by their team-selection for the WC final, where they had left Ajanta Mendis and including an in-experienced bowler playing his first world cup match. I can’t understand the logic behind this, as they say, You have to Field your Best Player in a a game like World Cup Finals .
Learn from your Mistakes – There will be no second chance in your life, But Zaheer Khan (Zak as he is called by his team-mates) got his second opportunity to wash off the First over debacle 2003 WC. At that time, the young Zak chose to be Over-aggressive and his mouth was doing the job than his bowling. Here, He was well-prepared and did made the ball to talk, than anything else. Its unbelievable spell of bowling where he had kept the current World’s explosive player and Best opening pair of the tournament quiet for Three successive overs, and eventually was rewarded with the wicket of Tharanga. This effort of his made sure India were on right track and put the Sri Lanka on back-foot straight-away.
Chase & achieve your dreams – “Lets hope this Team India achievement inspires every one to believe in their dreams n abilities and to put in the hard work necessary to chase and achieve their dreams 🙂 ” – Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.
What better example you need than this Man who has chased his dreams of lifting the World cup, putting all his effort to achieve what he had dreamt off at the age of 16. He had to wait for 21 long years to get to this point and important thing is he Never gave up. He was Inspirational to all the members of the team, as the team members themselves revealed that they did win the World cup for Sachin.
Hard work payed off – The man who was instrumental in India’s World Cup win, Yuvraj Singh, was criticized at the start of the tournament on his inclusion in the squad. He had worked hard on his skills and also Took Responsibility of the Fifth bowler which India was clearly missing. With his stunning all-round performace against Australia in the Knock-out stages, he proved all his critics wrong. Hats Off to Dhoni-The Indian Captian, having kept faith in him and believed in his potential. Its the Hallmark of Dhoni’s leadership where he back-up his team members in bad phases and get the best out of them.
Success doesn’t come very easy – Sachin is the best person to speak about this, He had to wait for 21 long years and even when we were so close to it (winning world cup), we had to work hard. Take an Instance in Finals, It needed Gambhir’s and Virat’s smart play and Dhoni’s courageous move up the batting order and hitting the form at the right time to ensure we reached the destination.
Consistency – If Achieving success is the hard thing, then Maintaining that success for a long time is hardest thing in this world. As World Champions, Team India’s focus in now to maintain the success and show to this world that this success is not just a flash in a pan. There is lot of talent and potential in this team, I am sure we will be seeing the new era in Indian cricket.
Overall, it was an exciting and challenging World cup and would rate ICC World Cup 2011 as BEST OF ALL WORLD CUPS. I would certainly have this script of World cup be injected into the textbooks where next generation would learn a lot from this and it would be an Inspirational in achieving success in their respective fields.
Hats-Off to Team India & Congratualations!! You made our Nation proud and brought smiles on 1.2 billion faces :-).
Pour in all your wishes to Indian team in the comments section.
Me 