Indian players celebrate their title triumph.
Credit: PTI photo
Dubai: Twenty-three wins, one defeat. That’s India’s record in the last three ICC limited-overs tournaments. If this doesn’t trigger visions of a dominant, unstoppable, extraordinarily talented and supremely-driven white-ball outfit, nothing will.
That one defeat was heart-breaking. Near impossible to digest, to come to terms with, to accept. It came in Ahmedabad, in November 2023, in the final of the 50-over World Cup. After 10 otherworldly displays that put all comers in their place. Against old foes Australia, one hundred thousand fans were stunned into disbelief as their heroes were tamed on the most important night of the competition.
What ought to have been an evening of celebration devolved rapidly into tears of disappointment. But from those tears spawned a new steely determination. Having led from the front with the bat and with his on-field acumen, Rohit Sharma assumed the lead role in rallying his troops, in convincing them that the end of one dream could and should be the catalyst of another. And another.
And so, here we are, a little over 15 months later, with two ICC titles sewn and delivered, in two different formats and in two different parts of the world. First, the T20 World Cup in the Americas last June, when India’s record read a perfect nine and zero. And now, the Champions Trophy here in Dubai, Sunday’s four-wicket conquest of New Zealand marking a fifth successive victory and going a little way towards lifting the gloom of the Ahmedabad disaster.
All three campaigns have had a distinct, unmistakable Rohit touch to them. Each of them came with numerous challenges but every time India were pushed to a corner, the skipper was there to bail them out. Either with his scything willow or with his poise and man-management skills. Ahmedabad on November 19, Rohit kept telling himself, was an aberration. He wouldn’t allow that to define his team, he wouldn’t allow his mates to let it define their legacy. How fitting then that he should be the Player of the Final against New Zealand, flashes of the old Rohit complementing the fury of the new in an innings that will be remembered for a long time for the circumstances under which he stacked up 76 breathtaking runs.
The longer World Cup came with multiple challenges, not least the mid-tournament exit through injury of Hardik Pandya, which compelled India to jettison their slant towards all-rounders and blood specialists Suryakumar Yadav and Mohammed Shami, with mixed results. India could summon a squad of their choice for the T20 World Cup, with the notable exception of Shami, but for the Champions Trophy, there would be no Jasprit Bumrah who was the Player of the Tournament in the USA and the Caribbean in the 20-over flagship event and the Player of the Series in the Tests in Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
How wonderfully India regrouped to make up for his unavailability, inasmuch as that is even possible. In his first big event since the 50-over World Cup, Shami looked as if he had never been away. And he was backed up superbly by a four-pronged spin attack, unprecedented in India’s ODI history. The leadership core had foreseen the conditions at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium impeccably, and used them to their advantage even though they lost all five tosses. Varun Chakravarthy justified his last-minute inclusion, his other three buddies, more experienced and accustomed to the pressures of the big stage, weren’t just support acts. India teased and tormented and lured opponents – among them New Zealand (twice), old enemy Australia and arch-rivals Pakistan -- to their doom, and rode on the explosiveness of their captain, the experience of their former skipper and the composure of their middle order to ace all four chases with a measure of comfort.
Did India benefit from playing exclusively in Dubai? Of course they did. Did that guarantee them five out of five? And a second ICC title on the bounce? To those who say yes and yes, maybe it’s time to open your eyes and smell the coffee. As the skipper said, “India is a bloody good team, without a doubt.”