Somewhere in the middle of this World Cup, Varun Chakravarthy and Abhishek Sharma started changing seats. On the team bus, in the dressing room, wherever they sat together. Nothing was working for them. The tournament had begun with promise, but somewhere along the way, they had lost themselves. So they shifted seats, the way you do when you’ve run out of rational explanations.
This India team was magnificent in the World Cup final — clinical, composed, ruthless. But the story of how they got there is not a story of dominance. It is a story of weight carried: men who arrived bruised, and discovered that the bruising had made them harder.
Sanju Samson’s tournament almost didn’t happen. The series against New Zealand had left him “broke, completely out of my mind.” Five innings, 46 runs. He lost his place in the XI to Ishan Kishan. Sitting outside, he called Sachin Tendulkar. The night before the final, Tendulkar called him to ask how he was feeling. “Right after the New Zealand series, I felt like my dreams had shattered,” Samson said. The dream had been forming for two years. In the West Indies in 2024, he’d been part of a World Cup-winning squad that never needed him. When India needed him in this tournament, he made 97 not out against the West Indies. Then 89 in the semifinal. Then 89 in the final. Player of the Tournament.
Ishan Kishan had been in the wilderness for two years. His crime: Asking for a mental break from Test cricket in 2023. The punishment was swift — no contract, no call-up, a mandate to prove himself again in domestic cricket. He spent those two years doing exactly that, his bedroom light burning longer than before, a photo of Sai Baba and the Bhagavad Gita in his kit bag, his childhood friends filtering out the noise. “After a point, you stop expecting,” he said. “You just have to keep doing the things in your control.”
Captain Suryakumar Yadav had his own weight to carry. Last December, after scoring just 100 runs in 11 innings, he told his wife he needed a break. He would not open his kitbag until the new year. The party songs that once blared from his car speakers gave way to devotional music. Hanuman Chalisa became his most-played track. He came back, and quietly held everything together — including himself.
Rinku Singh flew from Chennai to Aligarh to perform his father Khanchand’s last rites. Khanchand had fought stage 4 liver cancer for months. Rinku carried his father’s mortal remains, a blue cap on his head, and then flew back. Suryakumar made sure he was never alone.
Hardik Pandya had been replaced as India’s T20 captain when Gambhir took over as coach. The handover had been quiet, but the questions followed Hardik anyway — fitness, form, whether losing the captaincy had taken something else with it. In the nets before the semifinal, he stood for 135 minutes, the bat turning in his hands, adjusting, trying again. He wasn’t leading anymore. But he was still answering.
Before the Zimbabwe game in Chennai, video analyst Hari Prasad Mohan played a short compilation of just pictures — Abhishek slashing across the line, dismissal after dismissal; Hardik muscling when timing would have done. What you were. What you’ve become. The video was mirror, not motivation. Against Zimbabwe that evening, they remembered who they were. India hit 17 sixes that night. Not one of them rushed.
Shivam Dube was judged before he was trusted. Not whether he would fulfil his potential — that question was reserved for the Sanjus and Abhisheks and Ishans. With Dube, the question was not whether he would fulfil his potential but did he have it in him at all? The answer had been shaped over 20 years in his father Rajesh’s hands. Rajesh was a wrestler who spotted something in his four-year-old son and built a homemade pitch. After the West Indies game, Gambhir said: “For me, Shivam’s two boundaries are as important as Sanju’s 97. The big contribution makes headlines. The small contribution that helps the team cross the line is very important.”
Every team that wins something needs someone who refuses to let the room get too heavy. Arshdeep Singh is that person — he writes poetry, sleeps through stress, laughs when trolls come for him. After the final, he turned a camera on Samson. “Justice mil gaya,” he said, grinning. Then, on Gambhir. “Paaji, kade has vi leya karo yaar (Brother, sometimes smile).” On the field, Arshdeep did what he always does — hunting swing, holding his nerve. Off it, he kept the room human. Somewhere, he is already writing it down. “I was broke,” Samson had said. Abhishek and Varun kept changing seats. Ishan stopped expecting. Rinku flew home and came back. Surya listened to Hanuman Chalisa alone. Hardik stood in the nets for 135 minutes.
They carried all of it into Ahmedabad on Sunday night. And then, one by one, they put it down.
The writer is senior associate editor, The Indian Express. sriram.veera@expressindia.com
