India-Pakistan clash stirs 2007 World Twenty20 memories
London : Those hoping for a thrilling Champions Trophy final between India and Pakistan at the Oval on Sunday may take heart from the only other occasion the arch-rivals have met in the climax of a major ICC world event.
Twenty20, pioneered as a professional sport in the English county game, was still in its global infancy a decade ago, when Johannesburg hosted the 2007 World Twenty20 final, with many players inclined to treat it as just a bit of fun compared to the more serious business of one-day internationals and Test matches.
The New Zealand team even took to wearing 'retro' kits and sporting 'comedy' facial hair in T20 internationals.
But the inaugural World Twenty20 in South Africa was arguably the moment cricket's newest kid on the block achieved sporting adulthood.
There had been concerns among many Indian officials about the impact of Twenty20, amid fears its abbreviated time frame might lead to a reduction in commercial revenues from ODIs, with sponsors, and therefore broadcasters, unwilling to commit funds in similarly vast quantities to a much shorter game.
But just as India's shock defeat of the West Indies in the 1983 World Cup final at Lord's sparked a shift in focus from Test to ODIs in the world's second-most populous nation and thus, eventually, in global cricket as a whole, so the 2007 World Twenty20 final is now seen as something of a staging post.
Related Posts