THAT CHAMPION FEELING

After 17 long years of India's maiden win in 2007, Rohit Sharma and his hitmen reach the pinnacle of T20 cricket by lifting the World Cup with their blitzkrieg approach

- Amitabh Srivastava

Across the world, millions of Indian fans had their heart in their mouth. It was a World Cup final, the final over. And South Africa required only 16 runs, very gettable in the slam-bang T20 format. Things seemed on course for another descent into doom when David Miller lofted a wide full toss from Hardik Pandya. Though not a clean thwack coming off the meat of the bat, the ball soared towards the boundary—it had six written all over its destiny. But Suryakumar Yadav had other plans. Sprinting along the rope, he executed that extraordinary double swoop: catching the ball just inside, flicking it aloft as his momentum propelled him over the boundary, and reclaiming it upon re-entering the field. If Kapil Dev's devilish backward sprint to catch Vivian Richards at mid-wicket became one of the defining moments in the 1983 ODI World Cup final, it was SKY who breached the limits of glory for India in 2024. The tense seven-run win by Rohit Sharma's team had a redemptive ring to it. The heartbreaking loss to Australia in the ODI World Cup final in November 2023 was finally given a decent burial on that late June afternoon at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados.