T-20 World Cup 2007

#OnThisDay Years Ago #WT20 24th Sept 2007, A Day That Will Never Be Forgotten By Any Indian, India Wins The Inaugural World T20 By 5 Runs Over Pakistan In Front Of 32,217 Fans In Johannesburg.

This will always be remembered as one of the most important days in the history of Indian cricket as MS Dhoni's young brigade won the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa.

After an embarrassing group stage exit in 2007 World Cup in West Indies - a tournament in which the team went in as favourites - it was decided that India would send a rather young side for the T20 World Cup.

No one took T20 seriously back then, especially the BCCI who laughed at idea of a 20-over cricket match. The fans too didn't expect much from the team.

The final against arch-rivals Pakistan was a match made in heaven. India had already beaten them in the group stages in a bowl-out, after the match had ended in a tie.

India won the toss and elected to bat first in the final, with Gautam Gambhir's fine knock of 75 guiding India to 158, which didn't look like a match-winning total by any stretch of the imagination.

Pakistan in reply, kept on losing wickets at regular intervals and never seemed to be on top of the chase.

Pakistan needed just 13 from their last over with one wicket in hand.

Dhoni handed over the ball to Joginder Sharma, the Haryana all-rounder started off with a wide, and Misbah deposited the second ball of the over for a maximum.

It seemed that Pakistan had pulled off a memorable win, when in what can be described as moment of madness, Misbah looked to scoop Joginder over short fine-leg with just 6 runs required off 4 balls. He failed to connect properly and Sreesanth took the catch as India went onto win the World Cup.