– Joseph
The 2024 T20 World Cup is truly a dream come true for all cricket fans in India – especially for fans our age.
Many of us were too young to remember, or even to know of the 2011 World Cup Final six (sorry, PhD friends, I know some of you are older than Thala Dhoni himself), but we’ve all witnessed India’s dominance since 2013. Despite having one of the strongest teams, we’ve seen our team get so close so many times – yet never quite able to clinch gold. This win is especially sweet after the nightmare we experienced on November 19th last year (we had our Endsems around then, so the nightmares were basically guaranteed anyway).
This victory isn’t just about the 15 players or the coaching staff—it’s about the millions who poured their hearts into supporting the team and witnessed all those sad moments.
I need not narrate the match for hardcore cricket fans because they would have already watched it 220724 times (don’t bother about the number – it’s just the date when the article was written). Still, for those non-cricket fans who came here and have read until here, believe me, I will not take much time. (Source: Trust Me).
The game began with India batting first. Virat and Rohit walking from the dugout is perhaps an iconic moment to watch. I would love to copy-paste Peter Dury (football friends, please don’t charge Article 19 for plagiarism): “Wreathed in Blue. Restored to this great gallery of our game. Walking works of art. Vintage, beyond valuation, beyond forgery or imitation. 17 years since those trembling teenagers of touch and tease, first tip-toed into this storied stage and now in their immaculate maturity walking together.” The two stalwarts, popularly known as King and Hitman, walked together to cease the moment in their final T20I match.
The duo gave a flying start, but, man, don’t be relaxed because India is facing one of the most formidable teams, who will put everything on the cricket pitch until the end. So wickets started falling. Rohit, Pant, and SKY fell quickly. (Btw SKY is a name, we will surely have to come back for this name later).
But, Virat is still out there. In this tournament, he was like that one student in the class who clearly messed up all his presentations and term papers but still got an S grade for his end sem. Batting along with him is a certain Patel Bapuji named Axar – I’m not sure whether he knows it is a final or not because bro has no connection to the emotions of anyone on this planet as he played an innings level above everyone as he quickly increased the scoring rate.
Shivam Dube, whose selection was widely debated in the comments sections of YouTube shots, clearly replied to the comments section with some pure cricketing shorts, adding crucial runs when the team needed the most. Just before Virat departed, he managed to take the game away from opponents like how he did throughout his career. The team posted a target of 177 for the South African batting unit.
So half the game is over, and 177 is a highly competitive score, especially with India’s bowling attack. Arshdeep and Bumrah are spot on two early wickets. Pressure is on South Africa, and India is in the driver’s seat. The game is clearly going India’s way, but I already said what kind of bunch South Africa is: the win in an ICC final is everything that they have ever dreamed of since the last 32 years, from their debut. The crown jewel came so close to them many a time and it was always taken away from them.
This made these players more resolute. Standing, perhaps in his final ever international match, is Decock for South Africa. Decock is a fighter (not a wrestler). He always fights to make his team win. On the other end is a certain monster named Klassen, easily the best batsman of spin on our planet, now up against the world’s best spinning Indian trio of Kuldeep, Jaddu and Axar, who are the main reason for India’s success so far in the tournament. But Klaseen did not care about the credentials of the opponent bowlers. Ruthless, they call him, and within ten minutes, our greatest strength became our biggest problem as he totally took the game away from all of us and now South Africa just needs 30 runs, with 30 more balls remaining. The voices in our “Head” reminded us of the Travis Head nightmares we encountered last year, as once again silence silenced everywhere with despair as everything we built so far has drowned once again.
But just when we are in agony and hopeless, we recognise that there is the tiniest beacon of hope that could rescue all of us. The very same hope that rescued us numerous times and the same hope we so dearly call as Bumrah. For those who don’t know about him, he is one of the spearheads of this generational dominance that the team is displaying for the last eight years. Hence, the equation is simple: if Bumrah can cook something magical and ignite some spark, only then we can go out as champions, and Bumrah is spot on. He proved why he is the GOATest player in this generation. While he could not get the breakthrough but some tiny spark was generated, that very same spark instilled some life into this game.
But the pressure is still on because Klassen is still on, and if he stays on, there will be only one winner, and that’s him. But just when the pressure is at the highest, the spotlight is brightest, and going is toughest, there is one clutch man who is uniquely suited to thrive. His name is Hardik Pandya. From all the way from Baroda to Barbados, from those 200 rupee matches to this world cup final, all he wanted is to be the best and make his team best, irrespective of the conditions that life threw at him. He endured the toughest moment and ceased Klassen.
Now it can be anybody’s game, and the Kungfu Pandya showed India away. And the next over is followed by Bumrah’s fury sending 7 feet Jansen back (Thala for a reason again). By the time of the penultimate over, the spark has already became a forest fire, as Arshdeep has already burnt the whole South African forest with his each dot ball and, man, Arshdeep is a man of spirit and grit. Here is a blunt truth about our game – everybody in the team contributes in their prowess, but most times only some reach the headlines. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is those under the radar contributions that can make the result, and Arshadeep and Axar have stood out numerous times during this tournament and did their best job to make us victorious.
Anyways coming back to the match, 18 runs from final over are required. While all the stars are aligning towards India’s way, if you are Indian fan your heart is still beating hardest because of two reasons. First, Miller- Killer is still out there and Second, you can’t believe if we are actually winning. Then the most defining moment in India’s cricket history happened. Those who don’t know this believe me; this is a kind of moment that if you are watching this live sitting on sand, you will roll all over into sand and scream so loud that the locals in confusion would call both Police station and lunatic asylum at the same time (thankfully I was at home itself). This is because Surya Kumar Yadav (Yeah that spelling mistake SKY) just caught the world Cup going outside the boundary inside the boundary. (I know that’s some difficult stuff to comprehend for our tiny brain may be the image can help us).
I know, this image might have confused you further. You may think the ball is coming from the sky, so SKY should catch it . But, this catch by SKY is perhaps the toughest catch ever taken under pressure, and SKY told how irrespective of your role, at any moment, you can still be best if you excel in the job and give your 100%. Rahul Dravid shared how Surya practiced more than 150 similar catches before this tournament to catch the most important one. So, practice makes us perfect (sorry for that mini motivational talk). That catch by SKY soon totally turned the sky into blue, as India triumphed one of the famous victories and their generational dominance finally crowned. Finally, India won the match by seven runs (Thala for a reason).
There are tears everywhere and emotion in the hearts and minds of Indian cricket fans, to all those people who have seen this very team going so close so many times and couldn’t finish the job. This World Cup is for all those fans who followed the journey of men in blue. The victory is special to all the players, but it is kind of bittersweet for those three stalwarts of India’s cricket, namely Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja. All these three have left their indelible mark in this format of the sport and it is an emotional day for them as we can see on our screens how Rohit is the happiest captain ever and dude deserves every ounce of it. Virat has no words, only tears coming out of his broken voice, and Sir Jaddu have no idea how they have pulled out an impossible. He was one of those few people who rarely becomes emotional, but, man, even he couldn’t control them.
This World Cup is so special because it is one of those instances where everybody in the dressing room has contributed to the team. I can’t expand on each individual contribution, but all the players have stepped up during the tournament. Some players could not get the chance in the 11, yet they are happier than the ones who got the chance when the team won. Because, at the end of the day, a team can win an outside battle only if they win among themselves first. Thus, Miya-Siraj bhai, Sanju Chetan, Yuzi Chahal, Jaiswal and Rinku Singh are the testaments to this proposition and their selection to the team is an art in itself.
Surely, they are no longer the future they are the “Now”.
Both on the ground and behind the scenes, they tells us why the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. This is a unique experience for all the players who won their first World Cup. Hopefully, this will be the first among many.
So before I conclude, I would like to remind all of us that a world victory always has a million stories to tell. While we cannot articulate all the stories, I can definitely try to articulate one of them. Please spare me, this is going to end real quick.
We should realize that there are stories that might not be in the spotlight because they are forgotten or forsaken by the world. But, the story is still continuously fuming in the hearts of those individuals who are destined to finish their own story one day, even when all the doors are closed. One such story is the story of The Great Wall of India – Rahul Dravid ( Yeah, the Faculty advisor + buddy mentor of ICT). One of the most iconic cricketers of the country, a sportsman with utmost dedication and honesty and a man who is the Defense of Indian cricket for the last 30 years, as a player, wicket keeper, captain, coach for the U19, and now the coach for Indian cricket team. The man has done everything that his team ever wanted. Yet, he never won a World Cup, and now, perhaps in this final ever cricket match in his ultimate wisdom, Mr. Indian Cricket, Dravid was crowned with a World Cup. It’s so rare and special to see Rahul Dravid shouting in a cricket field with joy like he did in the final (of course, he shouts once in a while during CRED adds).
So this article is formally coming to an end. This is for all those mad cricket fans, (of course to others as well) who on the 19th of November, thought never to watch cricket again and ended up watching the very next match. It is for those like me, who trolled Hardik Pandya at this lowest and celebrated him during the final (apologies to Pandya). This article is for all of us because I know you did all of this unconsciously. It is because our cricket is an unconscious emotion, and sometimes we don’t have any say in what we say.
Design by Lakshmi
Edited by Yatin Satish & Oishi Banerjee
Article 19 