The Final of the first T20 World Cup. Australia vs South Africa. Oh sorry, its Australia vs England. Bound to be an exciting game. That is what everyone expected, right from the Carribean, across Asia and till New Zealand. But in the end it was a match no one ever expected, yet having more excitement attached to it than any other final ever could have.
The Final Showdown, World War 3, Greatest battle in the history of cricket were terms used to describe the match before it was even played. INDIA vs PAKISTAN. Since almost half the world must have seen this match and the other half must have heard of it already, it would be useless to describe the match here. Needless to mention, the Indian team celebrated with an utter recklessness, running like madmen across the ground and crowds at home went crazy. Well a world cup victory against Pakistan is something to celebrate.
The Media ofcourse had a gala time, describing the team as "The Indian Idols" "Greatest cricket team" with catchy headlines like "India thrash Pakistan". However all the newspapers conspicuously failed to mention that India had nearly lost the match, that the result could have gone either ways even in the last over.I have no hesitation in saying that had India lost the match the media would still have had a gala time cursing the "pathetic team". In Pakistan people took to streets burning effigies of their star players, whom they had glorified only days ago. Had India lost the match perhaps the reaction may have been much the same in India.
In the end, even though the media turns out to be a winner both ways what has to be remembered about this match is that both teams were equally matched and India certainly never "thrashed" Pakistan. Finally in that last crucial over it was as much a matter of luck and fate as it was of skill
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