September 24 2007: MS Dhoni and company win inaugural World Twenty20

25th June 1983 will always remain etched in the memory of a cricket fan in India, on that day India won the World Cup for the first time.

24 years later India went on to win the world title for the second time, this time beating arch-rivals Pakistan in the final to clinch a memorable win.

India came into the tournament with a relative young side after, the quartet of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble decided to skip the tournament. The event also saw enigmatic MS Dhoni named captain of the side for the first time.

India were never favourites for the 2007 World T20 having only played just one match against South Africa a year before.

Having beaten Australia in the semifinal India took on Pakistan in the final who had gotten the better of New Zealand in the other match.

Batting first after winning the toss, India posted a decent 157/5 in their 20 overs. Gautam Gambhir was the top scorer with 75, while Rohit Sharma’s late cameo took India’s total past 150.

Pakistan got off to a poor start losing Mohammad Hafeez in the very first over and it didn’t get any better from there, after 16 overs the men in Green had struggled to 104/7.

Just when it seemed the victory was only a formality, Misbah-ul-Haq took the responsibility in his own hands and tried to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Misbah hit Harbhajan Singh for three sixes in the 17th over and Pakistan had a glimmer of hope, Sohail Tanvir followed suit and clobbered Sreesanth for two hits over the fence in the very next over. Issue for Pakistan was that they kept losing wickets. Pakistan were nine down before the last over from which they needed 13 runs.

Right arm medium pacer Joginder Singh had the responsibility and when the second ball of the over went for six the nerves in both camps started jangling like never before.

However, the very next ball Misbah played a shot that will probably haunt him for the rest of his life as he tried to scoop Joginder over short fine-leg, only to find the grateful hands of Sreesanth, who made no mistake and the ribbons on the trophy were blue.

BCCI rewarded the team with a bonus of US$ 2 million for their achievement.