Former Pakistan allrounder Azhar Mahmood has highlighted the takeaways for India after winning the ICC T20 World Cup 2007. As per him, the memorable victory paved the way for BCCI to organise the Indian Premier League. He also named that the tournament gave birth to India’s greatest leader MS Dhoni.
MS Dhoni first time captained the team in the T20 World Cup 2007 tournament. He went to clinch the coveted trophy while leading the young guns Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina and Sreesanth. Senior players like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and several other cricketers have snubbed the tournament.
India’s victory was a massive boost for them: Mahmood
Azhar Mahmood, who has played 21 Tests and 143 ODIs, has said that India focuses only on Test and ODI cricket before winning the T20 World Cup 2007. He said that triumph brought a revolution in Indian cricketer as it led the birth of IPL, the most popular league across all the world.
“India were not keen [playing T20s] before the T20 World Cup. They were concentrating more on Test match cricket and one-day cricket. It was a massive boost for Indian cricket to win the T20 World Cup, which eventually led to the birth of IPL. It was great to see,” Mahmood said on Wisden’s The Greatest Rivalry podcast.
Azhar Mahmood on MS Dhoni:
Azhar Mahmood feels the biggest takeaway from India winning the T20 World Cup was the rise of MS Dhoni as captain of the Indian team. He said that the former Indian captain changed the mindset of Indian cricket and brought laurels for them.
“It was a great game of cricket, especially for Indian cricket. It was the birth of a great leader in Indian cricket – MS Dhoni. He changed the mindset and a lot of things in Indian cricket, for which he deserves credit,” Mahmood said.
Further, he also recalled the remorse of his country losing in the grand-finale against India. With 13 needed off the final over, Misbah struck a six off the second ball of the over from Joginder Sharma to bring the target down to six off four. Off the third ball, Misbah went for a cheeky scoop, which he did not time well and the ball landed down S Sreesanth’s hand. Mahmood feels that Misbah should not have played that shot.
“Unfortunately, Pakistan was on the losing side. Misbah Ul Haq was playing so well but in the end, he tried to play that scoop shot. He could have hit a straight six off Joginder Sharma but he tried to go with a fancy scoop. I jumped on my sofa, when I saw, but then when the catch was taken, I was like ‘what’s happening’,” Mahmood added.
After the ICC T20 World Cup 2007 victory, MS Dhoni guided the team to the World Cup 2011 victory. Under his captaincy, India also won the Champions Trophy 2013