Oh, what a feeling!

I watched the winning moments of India’s World Cup win of 1983 on a black and white TV in a friend’s house in Calcutta. There was great joy on the occasion and on the following day The Telegraph screamed “The World In India’s Pocket”. But the passion for cricket in India had not yet attained the fervour that it has today. There was a sense of refinement about the celebrations, perhaps in keeping with the exalted image of Lords, the spiritual centre of the gentleman’s game, where the trophy was won. Also, hardly anyone expected India to beat the mighty West Indies, so there wasn’t a reserve of expectancy built up waiting to release itself in that final moment of triumph.

This time around it was different. Over the last few years, India had established itself as among the top cricketing nations – most notably winning the T20 World Cup in 97 and becoming the top ranked test playing nation in 2010. But everyone knows T20 isn’t the real deal, and topping the test rankings, while a great achievement doesn’t deliver the knockout punch that winning a World Cup does. I mean, how many more people would know Carol Wozniacki if she actually won a Grand Slam than if she just remained tennis’ No 1 ranked player?

This time, we knew there was a real chance. We were on home turf and Australia were no longer as dominating as a couple of years back. An opportunity like this did not come along too often and we all wanted it for ourselves as well as for cricket’s most loved personality over the last twenty years, for whom this was likely to be the last appearance at the event . Almost half the nation wasn’t alive when India won her last World Cup, and they needed to feel what it meant to be World Champions in the only sport that matters in the country,

At 31 for 2, a few overs into the Indian innings, most Indian cricket fans must have felt the familiar sinking “it is not to be” feeling. But it was to be. When Dhoni dispatched the white ball into the Mumbai night sky a couple of hours later, it opened the floodgates to the pent-up anxiety (now euphoria) of the last six weeks which overflowed onto the streets, through the bylanes into millions of homes

Twenty eight years ago, Kapil Dev and his team brought great joy to the country by causing a huge upset. A generation later, Dhoni and his men ensured there was no upset and in doing so sparked off the wild celebrations that the country had long awaited.