Glorious Twenty20 World Cup victory delights the nation

Pakistan’s glorious victory in the Twenty20 World Cup has turned the gloom prevailing in the country into a wave of happiness and joy. The people celebrated the victory on Sunday with all the thunder produced by singing, dancing, drum beating and other forms of high tone music all over Pakistan. The cricket enthusiasts thronged the roads in groups of hundreds and thousands chanting slogans in praise of the team. They waved the Pakistan flags, play-cards and posters with players’ photographs. The unprecedented level of illuminations and fire-works spread so much of glitter and shine in the atmosphere that the night almost turned into day.

The morning engulfed the atmosphere in an unprecedented media hype in which the daily newspapers were found studded with glamorous headlines highlighting the team’s splendid performance and attractive action photographs of the players. The pages were full of messages of felicitations starting from the President and the Prime Minister of Pakistan down to other prominent figures of the country, the former cricketers and all those who loved the game in their right earnest. Same was for the television channels which entertained the viewers with glimpses of the match with pictures of the players, their interviews, news strips carrying the cricket lovers’ messages of congratulations and other items of interest. One of the TV channels deserved bouquets for hoisting giant size TV screens all over the city of Lahore for the general public to watch the match outdoors. Above all, there was a spate of cash prizes for the players announced by various leaders and institutions starting from the country’s top brass downwards. I think the team fully deserved all this.

Winning the Twenty20 World Cup is the second biggest honour brought to the country by our cricket team after the World Cup 1992 clinched by Imran Khan and his boys. Since the media was not very advanced in those days, we really do not remember the extent of projection given to the event. The peoples’ enthusiasm and its projection that we have witnessed now will, however, remain in the annals of Pakistan cricket for all times to come. The final phase of the show of peoples’ love for the team and their jubilations for the victory was, however, marred by the authorities who became over-cautious about the players’ security. Thousands of cricket fans went to the airport to have a glimpse of their heroes and to give them an exhibition of the nation’s overwhelming feelings of joy and happiness over the historical triumph, but they were highly disappointed to find that the team had been carried away ‘from the back door’.

Coming to the championship itself, the well known ‘unpredictability factor’ attached to the game of cricket started proving its credibility from the very start. Even without Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist, Glen McGrath and other stalwarts, the Australian team was not so weak to be eliminated in the preliminary round. The feelings of shock, sorrow and grief suffered by the cricket lovers Down Under can be well imagined. The Australian nation would never have expected the long time ‘rulers of world cricket’ to return home so quick. Same was for the defending champions India who had a very balanced side with most of the players performing consistently well and the hosts England who enjoyed fully the traditional advantages of home grounds, pitches and the crowd.

After the Aussies ouster, South Africa enjoyed the top position by remaining undefeated till the semi-finals. Otherwise too they appeared to be a pretty strong outfit, ‘favourites to win’ on all counts. Pitched against them it was a pretty tough challenge for the Pakistan who had not performed brilliantly in the preceding contests, but the lady luck played its part in Pakistan’s victory. Batting first Pakistan scored 149 runs only, giving South Africa an easy target of 150 runs to win. Pakistan’s bowling strength proved its reputation by playing havoc with the ball. They kept the opponents under pressure to such an extent that the ‘media favourites’ were snubbed down to a paltry score of 142 for 5 wickets, conceding Pakistan a victory by 7 runs. Surprisingly, our bowlers maintained such a superb accuracy that even with five wickets in hand the Proteas could not open up to hit the target. With an exciting cum entertaining 51, Shahid Afridi was the hero of the match.

After such a sparkling victory, the world media turned its focus towards Pakistan team declaring it the ‘favourites to win’. By defeating the top team of the tournament, Pakistan mustered tremendous courage and confidence with their morale sky high to face Sri Lanka in the finals. The battery of our speedsters did wonders again by demolishing the Islanders top order by claiming the first 4 wickets for a petty 32 runs. With only Kumar Sangakkara (64*) holding the fort, they managed a total of 138 for the loss of 6 wickets. With a magnificent haul of 3 for 20 Abdul Razzaq (the so called rebel) was the chief wrecker of Sri Lanka’s innings. With the batting having gained its full momentum, Pakistan achieved the target with the loss of only two wickets. With a sparkling 54 not out Shahid Afridi again emerged as the hero of this grand victory.

The very fact that our team lost to India in the finals of the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup and have now emerged as winners of the second World Cup clearly proves that Pakistan have the talent and ability to defeat any team of the world in this brand of cricket. It is only the matter of maintaining proper mental balance, keeping their wits about good fielding and utilising their resources to the full extent. Good strategy, proper match planning and leading from the front by the skipper will be the additional assets.