The history of sports is filled with romantic stories of improbable triumphs. Pakistan’s T20 World Cup victory against Sri Lanka on Sunday is the stuff of folklore. Someday, someone will make a film called, Chak De! Pakistan.
For, this emphatic eight-wicket victory wasn’t just about what Younis Khan and his men achieved on the pitch. We must not forget the circumstances in which it came about. Pakistan had played little international cricket in recent times. They had also performed poorly in its early games. But the team bounced back to fashion a triumph that will surely lift the spirit of a nation ravaged by a brutal internal strife.
Only the petty will argue that Pakistan didn’t deserve to finish first. A World Cup isn’t always won by the best team. In the 1982 football World Cup, Brazil was arguably the best side. It didn’t even reach the semis. Surely neither India nor Australia were the best teams when they won the ODI World Cups in 1983 and 1987 respectively. They won because they performed better than their rivals when it mattered.
In its fundamentals, winning any top-quality championship is about peaking at the right time. Younis Khan’s team whipped up a sweet rhythm as the tournament headed towards its climax. During key moments, they displayed self-belief and passion. They even made their own luck.
On Sunday, Pakistan played with brains too. Bowling a barrage of short-pitched deliveries to plot in-form Dilshan’s dismissal was a great example of putting plan into practice. For a change, Afridi batted with sense and sensibility mixing the big shots with smart singles. He is Pakistan’s great hero.
As I wrote in my previous blog, in every match Pakistan found a man of the moment. In this game, it was Abdul Razzaq, the bowler. Razzaq’s 3 for 20 never allowed Lanka to reach a position of advantage. The senior bowler showed how much his team missed its ICL stars. Akmal, Shahzaib and Shoaib too played their parts. Pakistan hardly put a put wrong.
Pakistan’s success has also nailed one the great cricket lies of recent times: that IPl will take India's T20 cricket to another level. The only Test playing nation that didn’t have a single cricketer turning out in IPl2 has won the championship. Food for thought, I guess.
Sri Lanka played well right through the tournament. But their batting never fired as a unit. On earlier occasions, they were bailed out either by the brilliance of a single batsman or by their magical M3 bowling trio: Malinga, Muralitharan and Mendis. Unfortunately, 138 proved too hard to defend, a bridge too far, even for its great bowlers.
The Lankans are a superb side. But it was not their day. Recovering from a protracted internal strife, a triumph would have given them something more to celebrate. Unfortunately one team had to lose. It is great, though, that South Asian teams continue to dominate the shortest form of the game.
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