T20 Campions 2007 - Chak De INDIA ,

Oh Oh, What a fitting finale it was. It was a See-Saw of a battle. India started off well batting first and the match was totally under our control untill the 12th over were we believed 180 was achievable. Then it Umar gul almost shut the door for india and restricted them to a total which one would have thought is easily attainable on this pitch. Then Sreesanth's handed over the match to pakistan with his first over itself giving away 21 easy runs to Imran NAzir. Irfan then brought us back into the game with two successive wickets , that of Shoaib Malik and Afridi. At this point , we all believed the game was all but over and it would be a cake walk for india after that. Misbah , thought otherwise and he brought pakistan on the verge of victory with 3 Sixes of a bhajji's over and 2 Sixes of Sree's over ( that was hit by Sohail though). Final over 13 run. Easily get able. Then 4 runs off 3 Balls , should have been a cake walk for pakistan. In the end it was joginder sharma who held his nerve and bowled india to victory. Chake De india.

At the start of the tournment, India were clearly the underdogs, then how did we achieve the unthinkable. Well possible reasons may be -
Dhoni's Captaincy- Hats off to dhoni for his captaincy. He did things differently and took decisions which any conventional captain (Read Dravid) would not have thought of.
In the final, it was commendable to bring in Joginder and Yusuf before Irfan or harbhajan as there were new batsmen at the crease and pakistan had lost a few quick wickets enabling them to play safe. Thus the fifth bowler went for lesser runs. Sending Yyusuf as an opener was another brave decision. Dhoni could have played safe by opting for Uttappa as his second opener. Though this decision did not make a major impact on the result of the game. But credit must be given to dhoni for bringing in the unknown factor. Also, Dhoni must be complemented for his total faith in Joginder at the slog overs. His decision to bowl Bhajji at the dearth in all the matches was also intelligent. The way he managed and controlled his bowlers in all the matches was commendable.
Fielding - Yuvraj, Rohit Sharma and Uttappa inflicted four run outs between them which turned the game at crucial junctures in india's favour. Imran Nazir's run out by uttappa was the turning point of the final. Imran Nazir looked ominous untill then. Rohit Sharma ran Kemp out with a direct hit against SA. We all know what a dangerous player Kemp is. Then yuvraj was also in action against Eng which were turned it in our favour.
Yuvraj Sixer Singh - Both the Fastest fifty in T20 champion ship was brought up by Yuvraj. One against Eng (12 Balls) and the second against Aus (20 Balls). Both these innings were match winning ones. These innings from yuvraj were the only difference between the two sides. Otherwise india would have surely been on the looser side. However we still managed to win three other games without major contributions from him.
Strategy to Bat first - Win the toss, Bat first, Make a decent start, have wickets in hand untill the 10th over and then go slam bang. This strategy worked wonders for india. Sehwag and Gambhir on most occasions gave us a decent start. Infact, the scoreline after six overs were mostly less than the runs scored by sachin and saurav in the 50 overs matches in the just concluded Eng series. Gambhir has once again proved himself by being the second highest run scorer in the tournment after hayden.
Bowling at the Dearth - India Bowling which was always wayward and went for runs in the slog overs mended their ways. Teams like SA, Aus and PaK who were chasing targets looked well set to win the match untill the 15th or 16th Over. They floundered mainly in the last few overs. Credit to harbajan for bowling those yorkers consistently (Forget the finals though)

Hip Hip Hurray