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Cricket fans celebrate in the streets after India won the Men’s T20 World Cup final.
CNN —
Colour and noise filled the streets of India on Saturday night as the Indian team celebrated a dramatic win in the Men’s T20 World Cup, beating South Africa by just seven runs in the final.
Photos and videos showed people waving flags – some even hoisting them from the roofs of cars stuck in traffic – raising their arms in celebration, dancing and brandishing sparklers.
The team is a national celebrity in a cricket-crazed country where the sport is played everywhere, but they have waited 13 years without winning the World Cup trophy.
India are consistently one of the best teams in the world across all formats of the sport – Tests, One-Day, T20 – but they have endured a year full of disappointment, losing to Australia in the World Test Championship final and, more importantly, the final of the ODI World Cup on home soil.
And it wasn’t just India’s victory that sparked such wild celebrations – it was the manner in which they won. Though India’s custodian Virat Kohli led the team to a total of 176-7, the highest ever in a men’s T20 World Cup final, South Africa remained undaunted and with five overs remaining, it looked as if the Proteas had achieved the impossible.
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India defeated South Africa by 7 runs.
Some brilliant death bowling from Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya and a catch by Suryakumar Yadav that social media users quickly dubbed “the greatest catch ever” helped India seal a historic win as they became the first team in history to win the tournament without losing a single match.
At around the same time, India captain Rohit Sharma and Kohli announced their retirement from T20 cricket, finally allowing them to retire from the format with a trophy in hand.
“It’s got to be the best moment,” Rohit said when asked if it was the best moment of his hugely successful career, according to the ICC. “It just goes to show how badly I wanted to win. All the runs I’ve scored over the years are important but I don’t really get hung up on stats and stuff like that.”
“Winning matches for India, winning trophies for India. That’s what I always look forward to.”
It was also outgoing coach Rahul Dravid’s final game in charge and he praised his team’s “fighting spirit” in coming back from seemingly losing the match.
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Arshdeep Singh celebrated Aiden Markram’s dismissal.
“I couldn’t be more proud of this team,” he told ESPN Clicquot.info. “We had to fight in difficult situations, and we did today, and I think it’s a great testament to the spirit of the team. We lost three wickets in the first six overs and we were in this situation with 30 balls to go, but the boys kept fighting and kept believing.”
India won the Men’s T20 World Cup, but the USA and Afghanistan also performed well in the tournament and made their presence felt on the global stage.
Playing in the Men’s T20 World Cup for the first time, the United States stunned Pakistan in the group stage with a dramatic Super Over win, completing one of the biggest upsets in sport. The co-hosts also narrowly edged out India to qualify for the next round of the tournament, the Super Eight.
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Saurabh Netravalkar and USA advanced to the Super Eight.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan stunned Australia in international cricket for the first time by reaching the semi-finals for the first time in their history, an achievement that sparked street celebrations back home.
In the end, Afghanistan were heavily defeated by a brilliant South Africa in the semi-finals and were eliminated from the T20 World Cup along with defending champions England, who ended an often lethargic tournament with their semi-final against India.
