India won 2011 World Cup Cricket and I am really really happy for Indian team specially Sachin Tendulkar. I am from Nepal but I grew up following Indian cricket since cricket was not very popular in Nepal back then and Nepali team is not good enough yet to qualify for the world cup.
I would like to think that I played a part in India's victory. Whenever I watched a crucial match, India lost most of the time. It used to hurt a lot; 1996 semi final against Sri Lanka, 2003 world cup final against Australia and 2007 world cup in West Indies come to my mind. So I made a decision this time that I would not watch any live match involving India. This was obviously very difficult but I really wanted Sachin to have his hands on the trophy like millions of Indian people as well as many non Indian avid cricket fans. I am no longer going to do this stupid thing anymore and will just try to enjoy the game. Here is wishing Nepali cricket team to shine so that I have my own country to root for.
When India was loosing many crucial matches and some regular matches abroad, several pundits would sing in chorus on bad infrastructures in India, Indian team lacking self belief, Australian team being mentally tougher, Australian team having good bench strength etc etc. I do believe some of them to be partly correct but I never agreed that they were to the extreme these pundits thought they were. Now that India has won, same pundits are singing the chorus other way around.
I believe teams go through cycle. Some naturally gifted players emerge and they form the core of a team which help them win more matches than they would have otherwise. Of course having good infrastructures and bench strength help but they don't disappear all of sudden when you loose. Australia loosing its dominance has more to do with its core team members (Waugh, Warne, McGrath) retiring in quick succession which is analogous to what happened to West Indies team and which is likely going to be the case for Indian team (primarily in Test cricket) when Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman retire.
