There is a special kind of madness that descends on a cricket field when a team collectively decides not to play it safe. When the plan is not to build, but to destroy. Even if it is the final of the World Cup.
India went into bat in Ahmedabad on Sunday and decided before the first ball was bowled. It was evident in the way Abhishek Sharma stood at the crease. Chin up. Eyes forward. No looking around. It could be seen on Sanju Samson’s face. Roughness and fate were written all over her.
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They ensured that the last 34 of the finals was a mere formality. The match ended in the top six.
| IND vs NZ Final: Highlights | Scorecard |
India made history as the first team to defend the T20 World Cup title. (PTI Photo)
THE GUYS WHO STARTED THE FIRE
Abhishek Sharma should not have been so calm. He is twenty-four. But he had aged at least ten years in the last fortnight.
It was the World Cup final. More than a billion fans prayed for his return to form. More than a billion were sharpening their knives for him if he failed again. Abhishek performed his usual best in the finale. (Photo: PTI)
It was the kind of match that will change the legs of grown men on clay. But Abhishek walked into the crease like a king walks into a room he once owned – unhurried, untroubled, ready to reclaim it.
While Abhishek burned brightly with the desire to reclaim his lost kingdom, Sanju Samson quietly settled into a rhythm that announced this was going to be his night.
Sanju’s cricket career has been one of the great emotional conundrums of Indian cricket. The talent was never in doubt. It was about consistency, about proof of exceptionality in a team full of extraordinary people.
MAYHEM IN THE POWERPLAY
Abhishek jumped out of the crease on the second ball of the third over. It was the signal for a cavalry charge. Lockie Ferguson, New Zealand’s fastest and most dangerous, went for 24 in his first over. The crowd roared with the sound of them taking something apart.
Abhishek’s backlift was high, his swing full, his bat meeting the ball with that specific crack that only happens when a batsman plays completely fearlessly. He seemed intent on sending every ball on the world tour, avenging past failures, responding to fingers pointed at him.
“Koi load nahin, ek aur powerplay over hai,” Samson tried to reassure Abhishek in the fifth over. But Abhishek was in the mood that killers are in when they have a loaded gun.
21 balls. 52 runs. Six fours. Three sixes.
He seemed destined for more. The fans were greedy in the stands. When Rachin Ravindra finally found the edge and the keeper pocketed it, Abhishek walked away to score faster than almost any spinner in World Cup finals history.
The fire was lit. The platform was built. The New Zealand bowlers stood in the field looking at each other with the odd expression of men who have just realized that the next few overs will feel like an eon.
SAMSON’S STORM
As Abhishek exploded around him, Sanju built the foundation that made fans dream of 300. After crossing 50, Samson went ballistic like a munitions factory on fire. Fours, sixes, pulls, cuts, lofted shots. Each one is the product of a man who reads the field two seconds before the others.
Ishan Kishan arrived with a nightmare for the Kiwis. His blows thundered through the sky. His cuts cut up the field and tormented New Zealand with thousands of cuts.
The second partnership became a symphony – 105 runs off 48 balls, the two men competing like Legolas and Gimli to scalp the opposition. They were the real lords of the Ahmedabad ring.
By the time Sanju Samson was finally caught in the 16th over for 89 off 46 balls – 5 sixes, 8 fours, a strike tally of 193 – he had taken New Zealand out of the equation. Phenomenon Samson continued to shine in the final. (PTI Photo)
He left with his chin up. A man who finally got his moment and didn’t waste a second.
Child with silent thunder
Ishan Kishan retired at the same spot. It left behind debris that suggested a hurricane. Four fours. Four sixes. 54 runs off 25 balls. Strike rate 216.
The partnership with Sanju was the innings within the innings, the passage where the New Zealand bowlers really broke down.
Rachin Ravindra’s second spell was for 20 in one over. Ferguson’s second over cost 24. The field was being stopped and boundaries were still being found as if gravity had been cancelled.
Stuttering before the storm
Then came sixteen and Neesham found his rhythm. Ishan was caught for 54. Then, one ball later, Suryakumar Yadav fell for a golden duck. The crowd held its breath. 204 for 4. New Zealand pull it back. 300 seemed a long way off now.
Pandya did what Pandya does: tried but failed. But he couldn’t find the boundary with any conviction. All the onlookers had only one question on their minds: where is Shivam Dube?
DUBE: THE GENTLE GIANT
Shivam Dube is a six foot three inch silent menace.
He doesn’t talk much. He doesn’t gesticulate, celebrate early, or talk to pitchers. He just stands there, big and motionless, waiting for the ball to arrive and then hitting it so hard that the fielders don’t so much chase it as watch it fly.
He came to the crease with 12 balls remaining and India had a very good score that was not great yet. The difference between very good and great in a World Cup final can be everything.
8 balls. 26 runs. 3 fours. 2 sixes. Strikes: 325. Shivam Dube’s form has been one of India’s key strengths in this World Cup. (Photo: PTI)
Sixes were not parabolas that cleared the border by inches. They were rockets. Furious things that come with a sound that signals a target.
Dube reshaped the trajectory of the chase, turning an achievable goal into something that demanded near-perfection from New Zealand.
Four heroes. Twenty overs. Eighteen sixes. Nineteen fours. India 255 for 5. In the World Cup final.
BOOM: BUMRAH SPELLS KIWI DOOM
New Zealand needed a miracle. What they got was Jasprit Bumrah. There is no batsman alive who looks comfortable against him. Everyone is praying for survival, counting balls left instead of runs scored.
He took a wicket with his first ball. Rachin Ravindra swung it slower high to fine leg. It was the kind of delivery that defies the team’s belief. The match was almost over. Bumrah’s bowling genius got another feather in the World Cup victory. (PTI Photo)
When he came back in the 16th to clean up two more, New Zealand simply crossed their fingers, like men who had already written the result in their heads and were waiting for the scoreboard to confirm it. The crowd in Ahmedabad stopped watching the competition and started watching the parade.
THE GHOST THAT HAS FINALLY GONE
Somewhere in the stands, amidst the noise, older fans sensed that something had shifted. In 2003, India played their first World Cup final since 1983. Brilliant, fearless and the darling of the nation, Sourav Ganguly’s team stepped up against Australia and were dismantled in front of the whole world. 359 for 2. India crumbled for 234 overs.
For twenty-three years, that night lived as a ghost in Indian cricket, present at every near miss, every exit, every trophy that went to another country. On Sunday, India buried that ghost in a final that ended the moment India fired in the powerplay.
Sport has a long memory and sometimes a beautiful sense of justice. India will now have new memories. A boy who batted like a king claiming his throne. The man on the sidelines who became the main man. A pocket racket that made bowlers feel small. A gentle giant who shot rockets into the night sky. The greatest bowler in the world who destroyed the opposition like he was dealing with a house of cards.
India are world champions again. They made it look like the only possible outcome. They won and made fate bow to their madness.
Sandipan Sharma, our guest writer, likes to write about cricket, film, music and politics. They believe they are connected.
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Issued by:
Debodinna Chakraborty
Published on:
09 March 2026 07:35 IST
