The match that cricket changed forever

The largest T20 final: No. 2

Every India-Pakistan match makes a lot of noise, but the reverb of this can still be felt today

Sayit Ball | March 29, 2025

India vs Pakistan, T20 World Cup Final, Johannesburg, 2007

India won with five runs

BEcause the future is always unknown, the meaning of the present sometimes comes to light afterwards and it can happen that you are not aware of the history that unfolds before your eyes.

Don't get me wrong. The stage was set for a cork. It was the first final of a brand new world event. It was the first time that India and Pakistan, the most visceral rivals in World Cricket, met in a final. India had not won a world cup since 1983, Pakistan since 1992. And their competition match in Durban Had had already been a sawing thriller. At the bull ring on that last day you felt the load, anticipation and the bubbling of nervous energy.

But because our eyes were untrained and were not used to the rhythms and structure of the size and ability to generate mass image, it was not possible to fully understand, planned or made the current and the underlying tactics at the moment that T20 would make the most strategy -driven version of cricket.

The first match between these two teams had already delivered a tie-graker in the form of a bowl-out, which India won through Straat-Smart Insight. While Pakistan rolled out their top bowlers to focus on the unguarded stumps, Mrs. DonaThe line-up included Virender Sehwag and Robin Uthappa, next to Harbhajan Singh.

The final would also be a final humdinger, making the most tensable finish in an ICC title event after JoJo is the entire track. An unknown opener in Yusuf Pathan let India fly from the blocks, and although they had been fed back to a few wickets, they would have seen 170 after they had reached 100 in 13.1 overs, but a double attack by Umar Gul, who was responsible for Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni, back. It was a young Rohit Sharma, who did what he is doing at the top of the innings (30 out of 16), which they brought until 157. The innings were held together, just as it would be in the ODI World Cup final in 2011, by the industry and company of Gautam Gambhir.

Despite losing a wicket in the first, Pakistan was transferred in the sixth to Turbo-loaded to 53 for 2 by Imran Nazir (33 out of 14), but appeared in slides on 77 to 6, and apparently from the game at 104 for 7.

India came home on an exciting reception of fans in Mumbai

Shriya Patil / © India Today Group / Getty Images

In so many ways, this competition would reveal things that we would know will be true for the T20 game in the coming years: a T20 match will never be won until it has been won. The game could swing in the course of one. And it was not always the best ball or best bowler, as we knew them then, who had the biggest impact.

So then. Thirty -four runs in the 17th and 18th overs have reduced the goal to 20 from 12 balls and, ultimately, 13 of the last six. It brought in the center of two characters who had been marginal when the tournament started. However Misbah-u-haq Pakistan had almost won their earlier meeting with India, and Dhoni had already trusted Joginder SharmaThe Slow Medium utility to close the semi -final against Australia. There was the option of bowling Harbhajan, but Misbah had plagued him in three sixes in his previous. Forcing or inspiration, joginder, seven competitions old, noticed that he had the task of winning India their first title in 24 years.

First ball a wide, so wide in fact that it hardly landed on the field; Second ball a wipe and miss; Thirdly, a full throw for six in the ground, and now only six of four needed. Can be done in one ball or three. Misbah does not take it to the thread, But chooses a shot that remains anchored as one of the most in -depth tragicomic moments In the history of the game.

Misbah had pulled the scoop of the shovel – a stroke that would become commonplace in the coming years – in the last chase against India, but here, when everything depended on it, he dragged the ball further wide and sent it weak in the air. And when the ball settled in the hands of Sreesanth, who would remember as Uthappa, had a depth-perception challenge, India were in an instant champion.

Nobody would have known in the abruptness of that moment that everything had changed.

Even the players had not realized that the enormous size of what their victory meant until they came home to a reception that has never been seen before or had imagined. And then the IPL happened.

Sambit Bal is editor -in -chief of ESPNCRICRINFO @Sambitbal

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