What must 83 have felt like?

I've watched it over and over. And yet, the hair at the back of my neck never stood up. Today, my generation lived our 83 moment. The men in blue have won and HOW! As the crackers lit up the sky, I did my little jig in the hallway. SMS's came in a frenzy, calls were made to friends across the nation and rasmalai was devoured gleefully. Poetic justice, to have been written off and to show the world that we took ourselves a lot more seriously than they expected us to.

Through this tournament, several players have grown in stature. Rudra Pratap Singh has bowled with controlled aggression, Sreesanth has struck gold on occasion but could do with some discipline, Bhajji and Pathan made fantastic comebacks, Yuvraj (need I say more), Ghambir has chipped away at the runs, Robin has shown fine temperament (in addition to being super yummy, that is) but one man stands out as a daring, new-age Indian- Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The Ranchi lad has come a FAR mile from the days of horrendous hair colour to show that captain's feather will sit pretty. It took some nerve to toss the ball to Joginder and some more to claim that he gave it to him because Bhajji wasn't confident enough to get the yorkers in. He'll do us proud with his cricketing ability and straight talk, provided he can stop doing terrible endorsements for hair products.

Spare a thought for Misbah. One shot away from being a hero. Twice over. Even at 33, he's Pakistan's find for the tournament.

This T-20 Championship has brought us to the crux of 2 questions : What will happen of India's big 3? And what will happen of One-Day cricket? Till such time as there come some answers, we shall savour this win.