There Is Really Something In Dhoni

Well that was one thing that the earlier captains namely Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid could not do and Mahendra Singh Dhoni could. Winning a tri series final for India. I still remember the then Indian captain Sourav Ganguly making it to the finals of a tournament that included three or more teams on eight consecutive occassions until the jinx was broken when they lost a match to Pakistan at Holland in september 2004 and got disqualified from the tournament, allowing Australia and Pakistan to move further. The list also includes India's world cup final in 2003 and the abandoned finals of the ICC Champions Trophy 2002 in Colombo.

Oh! Yes..had the finals of the ICC Champions Trophy been played, India would have ended up victorious. And after the loss to Pakistan at Netherlands, India's run to the finals of a tri nation series finals continued, when they made it to the finals yet again in 2005, in a series involving Sri Lanka & West Indies, followed by another one at Zimbabwe involving Zimbabwe (obviously) and New Zealand. Then in the Asia cup 2008 yet again a loss in the finals to Sri Lanka at Karachi. Earlier to that (Asia cup 2008), India had lost the finals of a meaningless tour that had just three matches before the finals was played involving Pakistan & Bangladesh.

And that time, India went into the finals undefeated until it lost to Pakistan in the finals. However, this time, team India and especially Mahendra Singh Dhoni was lucky enough to have lifted a tri nation trophy. Not only was he the captain of that Indian team that won the finals of the tri nation tournament mentioned above, but also scored a handy 56 that boosted the total well above the 300 run mark. And so was the case when it came to their bowling counterpart especially Harbhajan Singh whose fab job with the ball is needless to be said.

Beating the same opposition to which it had lost earlier indeed brings in much satisfaction. Last year, at around the same time, just before the Asia cup due in Pakistan, there was a similar tri nation series that involved India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, in which India won matches against both Bangladesh and Pakistan only to lose the finals to Pakistan. This time, it was Sri Lanka who replaced India and India replaced Pakistan. And India did deserve to be victorious despite some loose batting from Sri Lankan batsmen and a drop catch of Jayasuriya by Virat Kohli. However, disappointment still lies in the fact that India could not reclaim their number 1 spot in ODIs despite winning the final.