CHENNAI: Rahul Dravid roared like a proud father. Rohit Sharma slapped the field with his hands before eating grass off the pitch. Sharma kissed Hardik Pandya on the cheek. Jasprit Bumrah hugged Sanjana Ganesan, presenter and wife, after an interview.
Adults bawling on live TV. Adults doing things you thought weren't capable of doing a few months ago. Adults losing all sense of professional etiquette. Adults letting go and becoming children at a candy store. Adults rediscovering what it is like to win a big final after multiple attempts.
Elite sport doesn't come with a satisfaction guarantee. In a commencement speech at Dartmouth College recently, Roger Federer gave a new perspective on his career. "In the 1526 singles matches I played in my career," he had said, "I won almost 80%. What percentage of points do you think I won? Only 54%... when you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot."
Even the greatest athletes go through more heartbreaks than triumphs. They rarely get to manage their exits. But when it clicks, like it did at the Kensington Oval on Saturday, the deliverance is off the charts.
Soon after the Indian players converged, the heavens opened up to drench them. The rain wasn't spoiling their parade. It was joining in on the fun.
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Off late, Indian cricket had not been in a good place. The culture wars between fans of certain players. The social media abuse copped by Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami and Arshdeep Singh after losses; they being from the minority communities only made it look ugly. The treatment reserved for Hardik Pandya at the start of this year's Indian Premier League (IPL) – he was booed in almost all matches. And, of course, the men's team's long-standing incapacity to get over the finish line in a global final.
Sure, no team is entitled to win trophies. They have to be earned. The counter to that, within the context of world cricket, is quite simple. How long a drought is acceptable when you have so many advantages -- finances, skillsets and manpower -- over a lot of the other cricket-playing countries (it's widely acknowledged India get to play God while some other boards need an Indian cricket tour to either stay in the black or attempt to break even)?
One, two, three... 11?
For a team which commands $4 out of every $10 the International Cricket Council (ICC) makes, finishing second, as harsh as it sounds, is the bare minimum. Sometimes, it may not even be good enough.
It's why Saturday's final could well be a sliding-door movement for Indian cricket. The Class of 2024 have shown what it takes to win. Now, the next challenge is to create a dynasty worthy of the house they are living in.
There are two ICC men's trophies in the longer formats up for grabs within the next year. Win them both (both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are likely to figure prominently in those sides) and they will become the first side in the game's modern history to do a three-peat over formats as different as chalk and cheese.
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Deep inside the bowels of The Oval, Sharma had caught a sorry figure. It was at the end of a disappointing final of the World Test Championship in 2023.
The captain had changed but the disappointment of losing a big global final remained. "In life," the then 36-year-old had remarked, "you want to move forward and win games. For me, winning Championships is the most important thing rather than winning any series.
“So, yeah, I am certainly very disappointed but you know, I have got to keep the guys motivated, make sure there's not too much negativity around in the changing room. Keep the atmosphere nice and healthy for the next event we have."
The cycle repeated itself at the next event. Inside the press conference room post the 50-over World Cup final at Ahmedabad, a downcast Dravid was asked to reflect on the loss. "There was a lot of emotions in that dressing room," he said. "... we will learn from it, we will reflect and we will move on. That is what you do as sportsmen. You have some great highs.
There was a lot of emotions in that dressing room. It was tough to see as a coach, because I know how hard these guys have worked, what they've put in, the sacrifices they've made," he said. "But that's sport. That happens. It can happen. And the better team won on the day. I'm sure the sun will come up tomorrow morning.
"We'll learn from it, we'll reflect, and we'll move on. That's what you do as sportsmen. You have some great highs in sport, and you have some lows in sport. And you keep moving on. You don't stop."
In elite sport, there are three kinds of teams. Regressing to the mean. Staying still. Moving forward.
After staying still, this victory is baby steps towards sustainable long term excellence where excellence is directly proportional to the number of titles.
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After India's ramshackle 2021 T20 World Cup, a significant churn was being prophesied. Too slow. Too rigid. Too old fashioned. Too set in their ways.
Too comfortable...
Some of those accusations were perhaps true at some level. But what Rohit, Kohli & Co. have done after that deserves recognition. Past 30, it could have been easy to allow their dogma to guide the autumn of their careers.
At a time when they were truly challenged, they challenged themselves to raise above the white noise (a significant departure in Indian sport as elite athletes generally prefer challenging the people rather than relearning the sport's grammar from scratch).
Sharma, in one of his first press conferences, said as much. "After the T20 World Cup in Dubai, we felt that there needs to be a change in our attitude," he had said on a TV show. "... how we play the game. We had a clear message and they were ready to accept it. If the messages are clear from the captain and the coach, individuals will try and do that. For that, they need freedom and clarity which is what we are trying to do. We are trying to give them as much freedom as possible."
That will be a shared legacy he will share with 14 other men. They bought into his ideals and executed it. He now hands over the gauntlet with a new culture set in stone.
The last two paragraphs will be true even without the trophy and the medal but at the sport's top end, teams are rated by only one thing. Titles. This team finally has one. It can be the beginning of many in a short period.