India, the champions

The ICC T20 World Cup climaxed yesterday at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados after 55 matches played over 28 days at the venues in the United States and Caribbean, with India carrying home the world title and South Africa the choker’s tag that they have failed to get rid of since their re-entry into international cricket in 1992. The closely contested game between the two best teams of the tournament enthralled the cricket fans the world over with typical nail-biting twists and turns befitting the finale of the world contest. While Virat Kohli’s 76 off 59 and Jasprit Bumrah’s 2 for 18 were the highlights of the match, it was Suryakumar Yadav’s unbelievable catch at the long-off boundary to help dismiss a threatening David Miller that literally won India the ICC T20 final – for the second time, after 17 years. For skipper Rohit Sharma and Man of the Match Virat Kohli, there could be no better time to call it a day.

As for Pakistan and its cricket-crazy fans, the contest had ended far too earlier, on June 14 to be exact when the match between the USA and Ireland was washed out of rain, paving the way for the former to move into the Super 8 stage along with India from Group A. Team Pakistan’s performance was much poorer even among the Asian contestants. Save for Sri Lanka, all other Asian teams fared far better than Pakistan. Bangladesh managed to qualify for the Super 8 stage; Afghanistan made history, making it to the semi-final of a major ICC tournament for the first time; and India, having an unbeaten run in the tournament, went on to lift the Cup. It’s time for cricket czars in Pakistan to finally take the game seriously by doing away with the long persisting ad-hocism in the administrative set-up, as the starting point.