15 years in the past at the moment, Group India pulled off an act that was completely surprising from them. On this present day, September 24, 2007, the MS Dhoni-led Indian staff gained the first-ever T20 World Cup championship in Johannesburg, South Africa. India celebrated its title win all evening lengthy with an excessive amount of pomp after defeating Pakistan within the ultimate, making it a very memorable victory.
The early elimination of the Rahul Dravid-led aspect from the 2007 ODI World Cup in March was largely exorcised by the title win. The victory marked the arrival of Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a skipper, and as they are saying, the remaining is historical past. In simply his first match as a captain, he led the aspect to a particular, memorable win because the Males in Blue lifted the coveted championship trophy.
Former India cricketer and India’s coach in the course of the 2007 T20 World Cup, Lalchand Rajput opened up in regards to the emotions and feelings that have been operating by means of when India performed the sport, as he stated:
“These recollections will at all times be there as a result of we made historical past. Nobody was anticipating us to win. Even earlier than leaving [for South Africa], everybody was speaking in regards to the younger staff, with a brand new captain [MS Dhoni], and new coach; Dhoni was captaining for the primary time, and I grew to become coach for the primary time. However we have been motivated to do one thing. And by profitable the World Cup, we created historical past.”
There are loads of X-Issue gamers within the 2022 Indian World Cup squad: Rajput
Although India went on to win the match, identical to different groups, it was a brand new format for them too as they’d performed just one sport within the 20-over format earlier than strolling into the world cup. Moreover, most of the extra seasoned professionals had chosen to withdraw, together with Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, and Sachin Tendulkar. There have been gamers like Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, and Gautam Gambhir on the staff, who have been reliable and so they by no means made India look weak.
“It was the primary T20 World Cup, so nobody knew what it was about. Nobody had any expertise. Earlier than the World Cup, the Indian staff had performed just one T20I. Since IPL began in 2008, the gamers have advanced within the format. Many gamers have had loads of sport time. There are loads of X-Issue gamers within the Indian World Cup squad [for 2022]. At the moment, we had Yuvraj and Sehwag. Now there are Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant and Suryakumar Yadav,” he added.
