India Road to the T20 World Champions | MS Dhoni Makes History | Complete Package

This tournament was a dream. It just got things right. In utter contrast to the fiasco of the 50-over World Cup in March and April, this competition, a Twenty20 World Cup in all but name, enjoyed outrageous success. The final typified it: the biggest draw in world cricket, India v Pakistan, went to the last over in a compelling game of shifting fortunes. India eventually triumphed, sending a billion people Twenty20 crazy.

Yet success brought its own problems, even if the ICC was glad to have them. How, for example, should the huge demand for Twenty20 internationals be handled? As the temptation to lift the lid of Pandora's box grew stronger, the ICC stuck to its limit of three home and four away matches for each team. Yet that raised the question of how they could be played in a meaningful context. And in an indication of the strength of the product, even below international level, the ICC announced during the tournament that a Twenty20 version of European football's champions' league would start in 2008. Initially, eight teams from four nations would compete for a winner's purse of $2m (almost £1m). A county's finances would be transformed.

The contest began at Johannesburg on Tuesday, September 11 when Chris Gayle cut Shaun Pollock's first ball for a whip-crack four. It ended at the same ground 13 days and 26 games later when Misbah-ul-Haq took a risk too many, and his failed scoop-shot gave India glory. In between came, well, pretty much everything. This was a tournament brimming with joie de vivre. Intense, in-your-face, incessant. Most days saw two games, some three; planned as a tournament at speed, sometimes it felt more like a tournament on speed, punctuated by blasts of music and countless dance-sets. Yuvraj Singh epitomised the frenetic pace when he achieved cricketing nirvana by hitting England's Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over. His fifty came from 12 balls: scarcely credible.

It wasn't just batsmen going pell-mell for leather. Bowlers pitched in too: Brett Lee snatched the first hat-trick in Twenty20 internationals, for Australia against Bangladesh, while no competition had ever seen so many quality, spearing yorkers. And the fielders dived, flung, caught and threw with astonishing athleticism. Often it turned the game: Robin Uthappa's run-out of Imran Nazir was the pivotal moment of the final.

On this small stage, some feared that bowlers would be little more than extras, simply providing cues for the batting stars. That seemed about right on the opening night, when Gayle's bravura performance - his was the only hundred of the fortnight - was cancelled out by the South African batsmen, but in reality the West Indian bowlers just didn't know their lines (or their lengths) and were deservedly sent packing.

Elsewhere, bowlers did assert themselves, never more than in the two teams who made the final. India benefited from arriving warm (not that it helped England) and had arguably the most varied line-up, though it took inspired captaincy from Mahendra Singh Dhoni to cover for the lack of an experienced fifth string. Pakistan's Umar Gul, a great exponent of the late-overs yorker, was one of seven bowlers to take ten or more wickets. Two more came from Pakistan, as did the bowler who asserted himself too much. Five days before the tournament, Shoaib Akhtar attacked his colleague Mohammad Asif with a bat, and was sent home. The Pakistan Cricket Board later banned him for 13 international matches and fined him Rs3.4m, about £27,500.

It was symbolic of the contrasting fortunes of the two tournaments that in the World Cup proper the predicted India v Pakistan became the low-key Bangladesh v Ireland, while here it was the showcase final. Ireland had not qualified for this competition but, by dint of reaching the final of the World Cricket League Division One, Scotland and Kenya had. Those two, plus Zimbabwe and (theoretically) Bangladesh, were the smaller fry. Scotland muffed their one chance; Kenya were blown away like a dandelion clock in a cyclone - losing a 20-over game by 172 runs - though Bangladesh's demolition of West Indies was almost expected.

The real, cockle-warming giant-slaying came in the fourth game. Zimbabwe fielded out of their skins, bowled with total conviction and, in 21-year-old Brendan Taylor, batted with immense maturity to topple mighty, if rusty, Australia. But Australia were not slain, just wounded, and they lived to fight another day. Despite their heroics Zimbabwe, like Scotland, Kenya and West Indies, failed to reach the Super Eights.

With the window between the end of the international season in the northern hemisphere and its start in the south so short, there was insufficient time for an all-play-all format for the Super Eights. That meant points were not carried forward from the qualifying groups - and a couple of dead games. It did no harm to the second phase.

#T20Champions #IndiaWin #CRICKETMAX

Видео India Road to the T20 World Champions | MS Dhoni Makes History | Complete Package канала CRICKET MAX