To call the recently-concluded Twenty20 World Cup anything less than a roaring success wouldn't quite be a shameful blasphemy, but would certainly be mighty close to it. We should know, the ICC officials wouldn't be grinning from ear to ear if the event was anywhere near as bland as the 50-50 World Cup in the West Indies. So what were the things that we learned from this very special event? Taking a cue from the innumerable movie message boards across the internet, I'll do my own list of the 10 most significant lessons that the Twenty20 World Cup taught us:
1. An Indo-Pak match is an Indo-Pak match is an Indo-Pak match: Maybe this isn't such a new lesson. No matter how strange the format or how neutral the venue, India and Pakistan really do know how to produce electrifying cricket matches with more twists than your average Bourne flick. If the first round encounter between the two turned out to be historic, what with the bowl-out and all, the final that these two teams put on show is already being heralded as the best finale to a major tournament in cricketing history. The Ashes? What's that?
2. South Africa are chokers, but never expect Graeme Smith to admit that: Honestly, Mr. Smith, the cricketing world is tired of bringing up that semi-final of the 1999 World Cup whenever your team crashes out of a major tournament inexplicably. Why not spare us the trouble and not raise everyone's expectations by performing so brilliantly in unimportant matches?
3. Stuart Broad can do a Daan van Bunge: I know, I should probably concentrate on Yuvraj Singh's jaw-dropping splendor in that unforgettable 6 sixes-over, but pray why has no one thought of taking a poke (or several pokes) at the bowler who made it all possible, Stuart Broad? The fact that only one international bowler (a Netherlands bowler, no less) in the history of cricket has ever let such an embarrassment come to pass should be a fair indication of how poorly Broad bowled in that over. Ah, the English! They can be quite freakish sometimes. And that brings me to the next lesson.....
4. The English can be pathetic at every innovation that they bring into cricket: Ok, 'pathetic' may be a little harsh here, but the English side was supposed to have a better shot than most at winning the tournament, armed as it was with a battalion of '20-20 bits-and-pieces specialist cricketers' and because, well, they started 20-20 cricket. Which is why the solitary win against Zimbabwe must hurt, perhaps even more than their customary insipid performances at the 50-over World Cups. 'Skill' is still the most important virtue for a modern cricketer, dear Englishmen.
5. Santhakumaran Sreesanth will perpetually try to be the Shahid Afridi of the bowlers: 21 runs off his first over, 0 from his second. Was he trying to create some kind of record? To be fair to him, he did bowl brilliantly against Australia and he played a big role in India's victory over Pakistan in the first round. But I do know that if India had lost the final to Pakistan, forgiving Sreesanth would have been a pretty hard thing to do. How do you let a batsman like Sohail Tanvir hit you for 2 sixes in a single, desperately crucial over?
6. Mahendra Singh Dhoni can make singularly inspired decisions: The tournament made a strong case for Dhoni to be appointed the Test skipper to go with his newly-acquired one-day responsibilities. His choice of players to bowl in the bowl-out was fantastic to say the least, and his handling of remarkably inept bowlers like Joginder Sharma deserves applause of the highest order. Maybe if he regained some of his batting magic the selectors will give him the chance he so thoroughly deserves?
7. It's never too late to announce your arrival on the international cricket stage: At 33, Misbah-ul-Haq is 3 years older than Mike Hussey was when Hussey first started to show the cricketing world that there can be better finishers of a match than Michael Bevan. And yet, Misbah batted so breathtakingly well throughout the tournament that one was almost tempted to give him the title of 'Best finisher in world cricket', or even 'Mr. Cricket', if you will. Unfortunately for him, only 'almost' - the cute chip/nudge/glance or whatever other name you wish to give to the ungainly shot that Misbah played on the last ball of the tournament will haunt him for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, Misbah undoubtedly was the most unlikely star of the World Cup - he sprang up from virtual nothingness and played not one, but two innings for the ages during the tournament; I'm sure Mohammad Yousuf isn't quite so wild now that he lost his place in the team to a nobody like Misbah.
8. Australia are not invincible in every format of the game, and Ricky Ponting can get REAL cranky about that: Just as we were getting over Graeme Smith's child-like condemnation of the tournament's format that was supposedly responsible for his side's early exit, Ricky Ponting came out and blamed everything in sight for his side's rather unexpected early exit (on a side note, it's a mark of Australia's supremacy in all forms of the game that a semi-final loss is dubbed an 'early exit'). Lack of match practice, his openers being too prolific for his side's own good, luck, the cruel scheduling of Australia's matches in distant venues.....the list was endless. Dear me, have the elements all of a sudden turned their back on the Australian cricket team? Or did Ponting listen to one Serena Williams press conference too many?
9. You can score a century in a 20-20 match, and still end up on the losing side: Poor Chris Gayle, he was in such a violent mood in the very first match of the tournament, bludgeoning 10 sixes and blowing the South African attack to pieces, that it seems he scared his own bowlers. I'm sorry, but the West Indies bowling attack is really quite ridiculously spineless, and it wouldn't surprise me if Chris Gayle ended up on the losing side even if he made a double century. Honestly, nothing about this West Indian team can surprise me any more. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
10. Twenty20 Cricket is THE FUTURE: Daniel Vettori and Adam Gilchrist can turn their noses up at the format all they want, but it is clear that if cricket wants to have any semblance of an existence on the world sports stage, then it's got to invest in Twenty20. Get rid of 50-over cricket within a year, I say. And puh-lease, get rid of the ludicrous dancers/cheerleaders too.
10 Things We Learnt From the 20-20 World Cup
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