Kolkata: There were hugs, smiles, photographs with friends and family and, yes, Tilak Varma did speak of a big party after but as India waited for the men’s T20 World Cup trophy, the images on television conveyed little of the demonstrativeness you would associate with the first team to have retained the title.
Instead, a sense of restraint was evident in the celebrations. One that reflected an awareness of how good—great even—this team was. The feeling coursed through Sunday evening culminating in India finally having a memorable association with the world’s largest cricket stadium.
“The most important thing in the T20 format was that we didn’t want to be afraid of losing,” said head coach Gautam Gambhir after the 96-run win against New Zealand. “Because if you are afraid of losing, you never win.” It was reminiscent of what Brandi Chastain (more of her in a bit) had said. “You have to be brave enough to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is not a weakness. It is an opportunity for high reward.”
With a top-order playing its first T20 World Cup (Samson did not get a game in 2024) and without six players who won it in 2024, India became the first team to win both the 50-over and 20-over World Cups at home. “It doesn’t get any bigger than that,” Marcel Desailly had said after France won the football World Cup as hosts in 1998.
Few teams across sport have been able to do that though. Anything apart from making the final is deemed a failure in Brazil, a journalist for ‘O Globo’ had told HT in 2006 hours after France had eliminated the defending champions. “There is history, a responsibility in these five stars, so you always have to do something extra for the over 200 million people in Brazil,” Thiago Silva said before the 2018 World Cup.
Captain in 2014 at home, Silva had been suspended for the semi-final against Germany because he had been booked in the quarter-final for blocking Colombia’s goalkeeper from taking a shot. That’s what pressure did to one of the coolest, calmest central defenders of his generation. That’s why Mia Hamm, then with the most goals in international football among men and women, was reluctant to take a penalty in the 1999 World Cup final tie-breaker. She did but has no recollections and, as per a report in The Guardian, passed out after the match.
It was pressure of criticism, unwarranted in his opinion, that got Aime Jacquet to resign as coach after France won the 1998 World Cup, L’Equipe saying it was ready to eat its words not being enough for him to reconsider.
And here was Suryakumar Yadav never letting it show that the sky could fall on his head. Don’t let the images of the India captain smiling on the field, patting Abhishek Sharma after a catch was dropped, fade. Preserve in your memory the calm with which Sanju Samson helped India start in fifth gear, the composure of Hardik Pandya, Varun Chakravarthy and Jasprit Bumrah. It is one thing to talk about pressure being a privilege, quite another to walk it.
In nine editions of the women’s T20 World Cup, the home team has won the trophy only twice. No team has been able to do that in the men’s football World Cups this century. Powerhouses such as India, Pakistan, Australia and England have not been able to win a hockey World Cup at home, no team have since Germany in 2006 and it was the third time in 15 World Cup competitions. The home team finished first only four times in 15 editions of the women’s hockey World Cup.
If the numbers in the 50-over World Cup are better, it has been helped by a recent trend. From one in the first eight, three of the last four in the men’s competition that began in 1975 were won by the hosts. The number is two in the last three for women. In 22 iterations of the men’s football World Cup only six times have the hosts won the title. In the women’s football World Cup, it has happened only once.
Which is a good reason to circle back to Chastain and the quote on vulnerability she gave to the New York Times in 2019. She had missed a penalty against China months before the 1999 World Cup final. That was with her right foot. So, with 90,000 in the stands, a World Cup final on the line, the USA left-back was told to shoot with her left foot.
She had never done that before, Chastain told FIFA.com. “I recently told Gary Neville that story and he said, ‘Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t feel comfortable stepping up with my good right foot!’” Chastain scored and the iconic twirling of her jersey followed.
In the only women’s World Cup won by the hosts, Chastain had scored a self-goal in the quarter-final against Germany. Her captain Carla Overbeck had told her to not worry and that she would help USA win the match. Chastain did, by levelling scores at 2-2. “The best thing I could do was reward my teammates for being so gracious,” said Chastain.
Didn’t Abhishek Sharma say something similar on Sunday?
