It would not be as iconic a parting shot as MS Dhoni’s six over midwicket on that famous night in Mumbai. But Ravindra Jadeja’s slap through square leg that wrapped up the Champions Trophy in Dubai, India’s first 50-over ICC title in 12 years, would long be remembered.
Emotions poured out—Jadeja plucked a stump and began shaking his legs, KL Rahul let out a shriek of joy and the euphoric teammates bounded out—as they surpassed the target of 252 with four wickets and six balls to spare, ending a long and frustrating wait for winning a global tournament in this format.
The end was frenetic, but there was little doubt that India would leave the city in tears. Even when they lost wickets in clusters—18 for three after the century-stand between Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma and later 20 for 2—there was never a fear that India would panic and crumble. When they lost Gill, Virat Kohli and Rohit in a trice, Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel stitched 61 runs. When Shreyas and Axar departed, KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya guided the ship, when Hardik exited, Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja calmly dragged them ashore.
It would not dissolve the pain of losing the World Cup final, 15 months ago, but it reasserted that India is an indomitable proposition in the white-ball forms. India won the final as they won the tournament as a whole, with emphatic inevitability. The skills they demonstrated were high-class (barring catches), the depth is envious, stressed by the fact that every member in the final eleven produced at least one match-influencing performance over the course of the tournament
India not only beat every opponent, but did so with a ruthlessness reminiscent of Australia in the 2000s. The conditions favoured them, slow and sluggish surfaces, but they harnessed those with clinical efficiency. The spinners were at the heart of the victory, but seamers performed their duties admirably too. Mohammed Shami was the joint-highest wicket-taker with Varun Chakaravarthy. Harshit Rana starred in his two outings and Hardik Pandya produced probing spells upfront, in the middle overs and at the death.
Similarly, batting heroes sprung from everywhere. From Rohit to Pandya, contributions came from every one. Virat Kohli anchored chases with his usual relish; Rohit offered breakneck starts, Gill offered solidity; Shreyas enterprise; Rahul reeled out knocks that suited specific situations; and Axar exhibited clean-hitting instincts.
The golden boys, though, were the unique spin quartet. Two left-arm spinners, a left-arm wrist spinner and an unorthodox leg-spinner combined to produce a blockbuster performance. The magnificent four of Ravindra Jadeja, Axar, Varun and Kuldeep Yadav nabbed 26 wickets, most of them at critical junctures of the game, maintained a staggering economy rate of 4.5 runs an overs.
Even by India’s rich heritage of spinners and their reliance on them in the subcontinent, they have never fielded a more diverse group in limited-over history. Varun is a leg-spinner who relies on his dexterous fingers to make the ball behave differently. His basket of tricks—the leg-break, googly, the slider and carrom ball—are delivered with surgical precision in line and length. Whenever the match had seemed drifting from India’s grasp, Rohit would SOS him, and he would vindicate the captain’s faith. On Sunday, he made India’s first breakthrough, removing opener Will Young after a breezy stand with Rachin Ravindra. He returned to eject Glenn Phillips, just when New Zealand were looking to accelerate.
In variations, only Kuldeep matches him. Long touted as the future leader of India’s spin pack, his career had passed through ups and downs. But he has fully emerged, and made his variety even more dangerous with his discipline, relentlessness and clever change of pace. He exhibited his big-match temperament with the scalps of Kane Williamson and Rachin Ravindra, thus breaking the backbone of the Kiwis.
The left-arm orthodox pair inject control and thrift. Jadeja is always the batsmen, strangling them with his mastery of length, flat trajectory and stump-to-stump line. He hurries through his overs, giving little time for batsmen to size him up. Axar is not exactly a clone, he uses the angles cleverly and extracts skid odd the surface, ensuring that he is not a bowler batsmen release their pressure. New Zealand batsmen, like Bedouins caught in a desert storm, stood clueless, letting the storm pass by. In all, they conceded a lone six and four boundaries and accounted for a staggering 125 dot balls. So proficient they were that they masked a shoddy day on the field, where India dropped four catches.
The base set, the batsmen cruised past the target to assert India’s absolute mastery of the format.
