From Dubai with love, one for the ages

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.