The 1983 win by Kapil's Devils heralded a new chapter in India's cricketing history. ODI cricket picked up in a big way and India followed it up with a convincing victory in 1985 Down Under. Though the squad did not pick up any great monetary benefits, they are still in demand for their epic win. BCCI realized that there was a good potential in pushing ODI cricket in the country.
2007 - T20 World Cup win by Dhoni's dashers. A new-look team under the first-time captaincy of MS Dhoni. What a change this brought about in Corporate India. IPL was born and there was no looking back for Indian cricketers. The players were assured adequate security on the monetary front by creating wonders on the IPL arena. It was a challenge for players to keep their head above the shoulders with the amount of money flowing in the system. Club vs Country was the question that started making rounds.
2011 World Cup. What this will bring about is anyone's guess but my hope and wish is to see Indian Sports as a whole going to the next level. Team India has progressed in various fields to a greater extent than 1983 or 2007. Chess (V Anand), Tennis (Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi), Billiards (Geet Sethi) were the sports that was in vogue till a couple of years back. Now, other than the spurt seen in chess (one has lost count of the number of Grandmasters in India), one can see India progressing in different sports - Tennis (Sania Mirza, Somdev Devvarman, Rohan Bopanna), Badminton (Saina Nehwal, Jwala Gutta), Shooting (Rajvardhan Singh Rathore, Abhinav Bindra, Mansher Singh and host of others), Boxing (Vijender & Co.), Wrestling (Sushil Kumar), Archery teams and many more. There will be a bunch of future Tendulkars, Dhonis, Sehwags who will adopt the game of cricket but one wishes that similar movements happen in these sports also.
Will there be a Sporting Revolution triggered by the cricket-crazy nation? One only hopes so.
2007 - T20 World Cup win by Dhoni's dashers. A new-look team under the first-time captaincy of MS Dhoni. What a change this brought about in Corporate India. IPL was born and there was no looking back for Indian cricketers. The players were assured adequate security on the monetary front by creating wonders on the IPL arena. It was a challenge for players to keep their head above the shoulders with the amount of money flowing in the system. Club vs Country was the question that started making rounds.
2011 World Cup. What this will bring about is anyone's guess but my hope and wish is to see Indian Sports as a whole going to the next level. Team India has progressed in various fields to a greater extent than 1983 or 2007. Chess (V Anand), Tennis (Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi), Billiards (Geet Sethi) were the sports that was in vogue till a couple of years back. Now, other than the spurt seen in chess (one has lost count of the number of Grandmasters in India), one can see India progressing in different sports - Tennis (Sania Mirza, Somdev Devvarman, Rohan Bopanna), Badminton (Saina Nehwal, Jwala Gutta), Shooting (Rajvardhan Singh Rathore, Abhinav Bindra, Mansher Singh and host of others), Boxing (Vijender & Co.), Wrestling (Sushil Kumar), Archery teams and many more. There will be a bunch of future Tendulkars, Dhonis, Sehwags who will adopt the game of cricket but one wishes that similar movements happen in these sports also.
Will there be a Sporting Revolution triggered by the cricket-crazy nation? One only hopes so.
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