T20 World Cup 2022: Let's rewind to 2007, when India bowled out Pakistan

New skipper MS Dhoni sealed India's maiden T20 world cup win, against Pakistan, in 2007. (Photo: Twitter)

It was early in September 2007 when we flew into South Africa not knowing what to expect. In some ways, we weren’t alone in that regard. The T20 World Cup, then called the World T20, was to make its first appearance on the cricketing calendar, and even the players weren’t sure how it would pan out.

We needn’t have worried. The tournament was tremendously well received at the three venues — the Wanderers in Johannesburg, Newlands in Cape Town and Kingsmead in Durban, where India were to play all but two of their seven games.

Of course, when Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team landed in Johannesburg, few had pencilled them in to last seven matches. Until then, India had played exactly one Twenty20 International — coincidentally, in South Africa, on their previous visit in 2006 — and had they been allowed to have their way, they would not even have featured in this World T20. It was only under the veiled threat of losing the hosting rights to the 50-over 2011 World Cup that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) relented and fielded a new-look side under a first-time captain, with seniors Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, the regular skipper, all taking a break.

Dhoni was nearly three years young in international cricket, but he hadn’t yet become Dhoni, if you get the drift. There were seniors in the form of Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag, but also a host of newcomers, among them Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, RP Singh, S Sreesanth, Joginder Sharma and Piyush Chawla.

A far more experienced and accomplished team had been eliminated from the first round in the 50-over World Cup in the Caribbean a few months earlier, so it was understandable that India’s otherwise faithful but demanding fans had no expectations of this hotchpotch outfit. For, perhaps, the only time since the turn of the millennium, an Indian cricket team went into a World Cup with absolute no extraneous pressure. Maybe that helped.

Maybe it helped, too, that the other teams were feeling their way, picking up the nuances of 20-over cricket.

Maybe it helped, as well, that most of India’s games were in Durban, in front of adoring Indian expats who wore their heart on their sleeve, their nationality be damned.

Maybe it helped that the conditions in Durban were right up the sleeve of India’s revamped pace attack consisting of Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth and RP Singh.

Maybe it helped that Yuvraj, feeling slighted at being overlooked for the captaincy, took out his angst on England and Australia, smashing six sixes in an over on his way to a 12-ball half-century against the former and hammering a 30-ball 70 in the semifinal against the latter.

Twenty20 cricket itself is a lot about maybes, so maybe we should set that aside for now. And focus on the fact that twice in the space of 10 days, India bested Pakistan. The first of those matches gave Dhoni his first win as Indian captain; the second gave shape to Dhoni the legend, even as it crowned the vibrant Jharkhandi’s boys as the inaugural champions of the T20 World Cup.

It’s likely that the Indian Premier League, which was announced midway through the World Cup, would have been a runaway success in any case, but it didn’t hurt that the appetiser came in the form of the World Cup success. A nation that had been indifferent to the World Cup joined hands to urge the lads over the finish line. The ticker-tape parade from the Mumbai airport to the Wankhede Stadium on the team’s arrival from South Africa was indicative of how much this triumph meant to a grateful fraternity still smarting from the shock of the Caribbean elimination. T20 cricket was here to stay in India.

The first of the Pakistan games ended in — how else? — a sensational tie! Pakistan replied to India’s 141 for nine with 141 for seven. On to the bowl-out, then.

India bowls-out Pakistan in the 2007 T20 world cup match. (Photo: Twitter)

Bowl-out? What’s that, you say? In the days before the Super Over came into existence, this was the preferred method of breaking a stalemate. In a slight variation of the penalty shootout in football, each of the sides had to designate five bowlers who would target untenanted stumps, and the team that hit the stumps more times would walk away with the full points. India won 3-0: Sehwag, Harbhajan and Uthappa all hit the stumps, while Yasir Arafat, Umar Gul and Shahid Afridi didn’t even come close. We were informed later that India practised the bowl-out at every training session and kept score, and that the one with the highest success percentage, Rohit, wasn’t even in the XI. It was the first indication that while the rest of the country gave them not a ghost of a chance, India’s squad and the coaching staff of Lalchand Rajput, Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh were leaving no stone unturned in their preparations.

As India scythed through the draw and Pakistan did likewise from the other half, the dream final of the organisers eventuated at the Bullring that is the Wanderers. It was the place to be on September 24, 2007, a sea of colour and noise and electricity greeting the teams. The final wasn’t a classic in the real sense but it exemplified the spills, thrills and chills of the 20-over format, with Misbah-ul-Haq standing between India and a most unexpected triumph.

Then came Dhoni’s masterstroke. Joginder to Misbah, last over with 13 to win. A wide, a six and a dot ball later, it came down to seven runs off 3 balls. Having hit furiously down the ground till then, Misbah went for "cute" and a lap-scoop, and paid the ultimate penalty when he was snaffled at short fine-leg by Sreesanth. A cruel end to one dream, the dramatic coming to fruition of another as India sneaked home by five runs.

Before the dust settled, Dhoni sprinted across the ground, sought out a young fan in the crowd, whipped off his match shirt and presented it to him, and sprinted back bare-chested. We should have known then we had witnessed the start of a new era in Indian cricket.