 2007 – A roller coaster year in Indian cricket
1st Jan 2008 23:00 IST
Manish Kumar
In the meantime, after the England tour, Dravid felt he had had enough of captaincy and it was high time he concentrated on his batting. The popular perception, however, was that he was not in the best of terms with chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar, who was getting more and more assertive.
Caught off guard, BCCI gift-wrapped Test captaincy to Sachin Tendulkar but having burnt his fingers in the past, the Little Master did not succumb to the lure and dark horse Kumble landed the job.
By then, the country had seen Dhoni's spectacular rise from the cricketing backwaters of Jharkhand to Indian captaincy both in Twenty20 and ODIs.
Success followed soon and after 24 years, India were world champions again, even though it was Twenty20 this time.
A side with scant experience of the format and sans the Big Three of Ganguly, Tendulkar and Dravid went all the way to win the tournament, thumbing nose at the Aussies and cocking a snook at archrivals Pakistan in a high-voltage final.
After the abandoned opener against Scotland, India edged out Pakistan via 'Bowl Out' before New Zealand halted them in the third match. Yuvraj Singh brought India back on the track against England, hitting six sixes off a Stuart Broad over to immortalise himself.
South Africa was next to come under the Indian juggernaut as the Boys in Blue set up a semifinal clash with Australia.
But even the Aussies had no clue about how to stop Yuvraj, who blasted a 30-ball 70 to steer the side to the final.
That Twenty20 is not for those weak at heart was more than evident in the seesaw final where fortune fluctuated with every over. Misbah-ul-Haq, like he had done so many times in the tournament, pulled Pakistan out of the woods and almost snatched the match from India when a rush of blood and a moment of madness did him in.
Misbah played that ill-fated scoop shot off Joginder Sharma to find S Sreesanth at short fine leg as Dhoni's daredevils emulated Kapil's Devils.
But India ended 2007 on a sour note when they were beaten by Australia inside four days in the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. |
