India’s T20 World Cup win: Why Hardik Pandya is India’s real Houdini

After this T20 World Cup, Barbados 2024 could well go down in history as the place and time for Indian cricket’s sudden flowering. And it was an innocuous-looking Hardik Pandya delivery — millimetres away from being called a wide — that might have put Indian cricket on the path of world domination. If not that, it has at least changed the psyche of its fans forever.

That game-changing Hardik variation that foxed Heinrich Klaasen didn’t have the visual appeal of the Shane Warne mind-bending turner to Mike Gatting to be called the Ball of the Century but it was a priceless anecdote central to a charming fairytale and possibly the crucial turn that placed Indian cricket on the path of a potentially watershed win.

Recall the timing of the Klaasen wicket, zoom in on the fingers that worked on the ball, try getting into the overburdened mind of the bowler to understand why Hardik was India’s real Houdini. Just before Hardik bowled that special ball, Klaasen and his partner David Miller had filched 24 in an Axar Patel over and 4 from Bumrah’s. Defend Bumrah, attack others — it was a time-tested, perfect plan. They didn’t need to take any risk but India needed to tempt them. Miraculously, Hardik did.

Lesser bowlers in such situations are prone to mind freezes, they forget their game plans, disregard learnings they gathered at nets and allow the adrenaline to dictate their actions. They also allow the fear of failure to seep into their minds and think of repercussions that await them. Had Hardik done that, a shiver would have run down his spine. As he would say after the final, the last six months had been a nightmare for him. Boos of Mumbai Indians fans at Wankhede still ringing in his ears, toxic comments about him still on his timelines, he was aware of the illogical ire of the unforgiving cricket fans.

Desperate pacers tend to bowl faster and bang the ball short to get wickets. This approach makes them predictable and, in turn, ineffective. Indian bowlers have repeated the mistake for decades. Zaheer Khan’s wayward opening spell in the 2003 final is Exhibit A of this inquest. Lack of originality, skills or big stage fright is why these bowlers lose the plot when it matters the most.

Hardik didn’t get yips on his big day. Even under pressure, his mind was ticking. He presented Klaasen with a wobbly floating cutter that was way beyond his reach. In Mumbai maidans, the ball has a name. It’s called zeher ka laddoo, a dessert laced with poison. Klaasen was fooled. His mind failed to read the pace of the ball, the same was true for his hands. He ended up edging the ball and was out.

This was the classic “Tortoise and Hare” fable being enacted on the cricket pitch. Ingenuity and trickery had got the better of the opponent who seemed to have taken the win for granted. While Klaasen had a momentary lapse of concentration, his ego got the better of him. Hardik, meanwhile, had stuck to his process. As a thinking T20 all-rounder, he had to bank on his intuitive variations to stay relevant in a format being owned by the batting buccaneers in connivance with the authorities. That’s exactly what he did.

Earlier in the tournament, in another important game against Australia, Kuldeep Yadav had played the Tortoise when he was up against another certified Hare — Glenn Maxwell. As in the final against South Africa, India, despite posting a creditable total, seemed in danger of being run over by the double-engine bullet train power by Travis Head and Maxwell, who were giving the usual IPL treatment to Indian bowlers.

Yadav, too, didn’t think of conjuring a dream ball that would sneak around Maxwell and hit the stumps. He was more practical and scientific. When being hit by the Aussie batsmen, he watched the batsman’s feet and second-guessed his intentions. He didn’t let the situation get the better of him. So when Maxwell charged at him, Kuldeep pulled the length of the ball, pitched it far from his reach and made it spin at a lazy pace. The wild bat swing was too fast, the ball too slow and sly. He was conned and clean-bowled. Mindfulness had got the better of thoughtlessness.

The genius of Jasprit Bumrah alone couldn’t have won India the World Cup. They needed the collective bowling intellect and calmness of the rest of the bowling unit: Hardik, Yadav and Arshdeep Singh. They were up to the task. The Indian bowlers in this tournament surveyed the scene very differently from the way the world looked at it. They pushed against the wall, they didn’t think of defeat. They constantly searched for that one sliver of hope in the most hopeless of situations. They regularly planted a splinter of doubt in the minds of the rival batsmen.

The wickets of Hardik and Kuldeep are a breath of fresh air to the T20 format that is increasingly moving away from cricket and aligning with baseball. Klaasen has said how he spends little time in the nets batting, he is more into focusing on his bat swing. Hitting coaches with long stints with baseball teams are now seen in the dugouts of franchise teams. India’s nerve-less clever bowlers show that all is not lost. The bowlers from the land of illusions, deception and the rope trick could stop the striding march of the bat-swinging hitters on T20 turf.

Though, a bit late in the day, India has finally found the cunning to get to the Cup. If only Chetan Sharma had thought of a wobbly floating zehar ka laddoo instead of the juicy full toss on Miandad’s legs.