CHENNAI: This generational team finally has global gold to rubber-stamp their status as the greatest ODI side this country has known. Rohit Sharma, three-and-a-half-years after he was entrusted with the task of bringing about a cultural reset, has now two ICC titles, the only Indian captain apart from MS Dhoni, who won three, to do so. It's significant because for all the cricketing commerce they had commanded, the trophy cabinet hadn't kept pace.
From 1984, about the time when the the country began to learn the spelling of the sport, till the beginning of 2024, this team had three ICC crowns (not including the one they shared with Sri Lanka). You can count all those near misses but finishing second best is no good when you are — or want to be — the apex predator (the walls of the Louvre are adorned with some of the greatest artists but there's a halo around Da Vinci).
India have gone big since last June. Tournaments across formats in three continents have now resulted in two of the biggest prizes this sport has to offer. It's important to state here they had an advantage over each of the other seven teams in the tournament. Even if coach Gautam Gambhir labelled them as 'cribbers', India are the only team who were afforded the luxury of picking a squad for one venue (pacer Mohammed Shami himself called it an 'advantage').
But they have maximised the conditions on offer to devastating effect and credit where it's due. In the process, they have done something no winning team has done in the 21st century history of a men's ICC event; using spin to win an entire event. India's slower bowlers, all of them whose primary skill is spin, bowled 163.3 legitimate overs. Their pacers, between them, accounted for 80.5 overs. This sort of skewed nature towards one bowling type was exacerbated further in the final when their four spinners bowled 38 off the 50 overs.
After the spinners restricted the Black Caps to 251 on one of the better Dubai surfaces, their batters, predictably found gaps in the Matt Henry-shaped hole that was the Kiwi bowling. What was so striking about India's march to the final, and the win under the stadium's imposing Ring of Fire, was the absurd lack of jeopardy.
Like, hello. Winning ICC titles aren't supposed to be like this. For Indian fans raised on generous dollops of fear, glorious failure and a sense of yearning for much of the last 20 years, these last three weeks has pretty much been a throwback to that wild seven week ride in the winter of 2023.
There, India fell shot when they could smell the paint on the finish line. In Guyana and now, Dubai, they have gone someway to correct it.
Dopamine to address a battered mind, body and soul.
