Darren Sammy-led West Indies won the World T20 without winning a game in the initial stage. (AP Photo)
That's ICC major title for India after 24 years, England for the first time, Pakistan after 18 years and West Indies 33 years. If we count WI's Champions Trophy title, a crown after eight years for them. One of the purposes of the shortest format of the game - titles for everybody and not just for the mighty - has been served in emphatic fashion.
Does it mean the Caribbeans, or their predecessors starting with MS Dhoni's men in 2007, didn't deserve the World crown? Of course, they won fair and square and every champion earns his stripes one way or the other.
But imagine this: East Bengal holding Barcelona to a draw in a match which is 15 minutes each half and then beat them in the shootout (T20 is, after all, a scaled down version of ODIs). What if the next 10 Fifa World Cups are won by 10 different teams? Of course, the game may get a further boost in the countries which would win it for the first time. But will those World champions create an aura about themselves?
T20 is perhaps the right format befitting the changing times. It's true that even cricket followers' life has become faster and hence the 50-over game could be cumbersome to follow and thrilling only in parts. But T20s can't give us the entire gamut of cricketing skills, and that's a big problem of the format to develop it as a refined taste.
The art of leaving the ball, reverse swing, fear of losing one's wicket, fear of getting hit out of the attack (many are one-over spells anyway), slip catching, close-in fielding, more dynamic balance in attack and defence and playing out a difficult time of a match are just some examples.
West Indies won the World T20 without winning a game in the initial stage but advanced on net run rate (D/L loss to Australia and rain-interrupted no-result against Ireland). Imagine if Ireland had lost narrowly to Australia before the rain-interrupted game against Windies. In that case, West Indies would have got knocked out on NRR before the Super 8 stage and Ireland would have advanced.
Ditto England's World T20 title in 2010. They also lost one game via D/L and had a rain-interrupted no-result game against Ireland.
In a sense, MS Dhoni's observation that India lost just one match and still got knocked out, is understandable. And despite the failure to reach semis, India improved their World T20 ranking by moving to third spot. Something must be wrong here.
When India failed to make the Super 8 stage in the ODI World Cup in the West Indies in 2007, they blamed the format (and not the selection of four openers Tendulkar, Sehwag, Ganguly and Uthappa in the playing XI). For the next home World Cup, the format was changed with six league games followed by knockouts. Of course, India deserved their World Cup title last year for three highly-creditable KO wins.
The group of three teams with two advancing in the initial stage of World T20 is too quirky. They have already changed the format for the next World T20 in 2014 in Bangladesh with 16 teams. There will be four teams in one group and hopefully, no team will make the next stage with no wins or at least two washout games.
The meet in Bangladesh will be the ninth ICC event in eight years starting with 2007 World Cup. Plus we will have IPLs, Champions League T20s and icon Test series every year. The monetary needs of ICC and other national boards are so high that there is no time to draw a more relaxing and rewarding calendar for serious followers of the game.
But then, world is changing fast with secrets and information shared in super quick time. We are more close to the fallibility of cricket and cricketers like never before. Today, West Indies and Gangnam are 'cool' things. But having an aura as a team could well be a thing of the past.
Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd's team created an aura of themselves. Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Darren Sammy and Sunil Narine are mortals first, champions later.
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