The Emotion of 2011 World Cup Win

“Dhoni finishes it off in style, a magnificent strike into the crowd, India lifts the World Cup after 28 years, the party starts in the dressing room and it is an Indian Captain who has been absolutely magnificent on the night of the finals.” These words are stuck in every Indian Cricket Fan’s mind.

Doesn’t it sound like a fairy tale? A man who has carried a nation’s responsibility for 21 years, never got a honour to become a world champion. But now it’s his last chance to live his dream in front of his home crowd, and his colleagues with a great team effort did it in an outstanding way. Well though it sounds like a fairy tale but it is real.

• 

Image credit: Freepress Journal

The Background

So the Indian team won the 1983 World Cup beating West Indies and this led to the cricket fever in India. So with a huge cricket following India hosted the 1987 World Cup but couldn’t win it. Then India hosted the tournament in 1995 and the nation hoped that this team has got the potential to become the world champions again with the greats talents playing like Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammed Azharuddin. But again they were not able to do it and this made Indian fans very upset.

In 2003 World Cup, India were the favourites in the tournament because team won against Australia in 2001 in a dramatic style and won the 2002 NatWest series against England too. So everyone knew that India is a very strong side lead by courageous leader Sourav Ganguly and had a star studded squad with Dravid, Tendulkar, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Harbhajan and many more. But Australia shattered every Indian’s dream in the finals.

Now we are in 2007. After the loss of 2003 everyone thought that India will be more experienced side till 2007 and will be a great competitor there too. But now things weren’t same. Ganguly wasn’t the captain now and Dravid was chosen as the skipper. The team’s atmosphere wasn’t good. India was out of the tournament in the league stage itself and lost to Bangladesh which was very disappointing (Just because India was a stronger team than Bangladesh). This all happened because Greg Chappell was appointed as the coach of the team, and many players including Sachin, Sehwag, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Mohammed Kaif and of course Ganguly said that it was a dark phase for the Indian Cricket brought by Chappell.

• 

After the 2007 World Cup Chappell resigned as the Indian team’s coach. Then India won the 2007 T20 World Cup under Dhoni, the new captain and now Gary Kirsten was appointed as the coach. Kirsten believed in team’s performance to do the talking. India won the 2008 CB series under him and had great period under him.

But now it was 2011 World Cup in India. The nation prayed for India’s win and Dhoni finished it in a great style.

The Aftermath

After winning the Cup India announced to the world that they are one of those ‘strong pillars’ of cricket in the world. And the way we are seeing the Indian team play today, in a fearless and dominating manner; this all actually started in 2011 because it made India confident about their game.

But if you leave the sportive aspect of the aftermath of Winning the Cup, a kind of patriotism was easily visible on people’s face. On the night of April 2, 2011 the nation was celebrating the victory for hours. Just before Dhoni hit that six, the complete crowd was singing Vande Mataram. This all was not just because of people’s passion for cricket it had a sense of patriotism in it, because people were very proud to say that we are the World Champions.

Suggestions: India’s Problem In ICC Knockout Games