Dhoni and his think-tank would surely have followed the rise and fall of the Australians. Now, more than ever, they would be aware of the pressures that go with the tag of world champions and the challenges that lie ahead.

You can rave about the other performers in Team India, but they are dwarfed when you look at the impact the skipper had on the tournament.

Till a moment earlier, the entire nation had been holding its breath; the night air was still and tension high. Suddenly, this stillness was cracked open.

MS Dhoni’s boys started the tournament as favourites and ended it with the coveted trophy in their hands. And like Australia, India must now strive to rule the cricketing world for the next decade or so.

MS Dhoni the captain is a tier higher than Vettori, Ponting and Smith. India must establish itself as the leader of the international cricket community, writes Nauman Niaz.

And that’s what cricket is all about. It’s an unpredictable game in which the best team is the one which emerges trumps in a tournament. It’s nothing to do with “deserving to win.”

The night of June 25, 1983 will remain etched in my memory forever. It was the time when India pulled off one of the biggest upsets in world sport and the city came alive like never before.

Succeeding in cricket has a lot to do with adaptation. Look at the innings Jesse Ryder played against South Africa. He adapted very well.

A cricket-crazy India fails to learn the lessons of conscience as demonstrated by Tendulkar and Gavaskar and even those by Ponting’s own former team-mate and vice-captain-cum-wicketkeeper, Adam Gilchrist.

The key to India’s success over Australia was that MS Dhoni got the team balance right. Against Pakistan, too, the skipper needs to make a tough call, even if that means he has to put aside his ego and bring in Sreesanth in place of the struggling paceman.