More than a sporting win?

Is winning the World Twenty20 more than just a sporting achievement? According to Ashok Malik,of the Pioneer, nations sometimes use sporting achievement to write a letter to the world and hidden in the on-field performance is a code for the dynamics of the society it represents.

It has become a bit of a cliché to describe the cricket team as an emblem of 'changing India'. Yet change cannot be measured without its inevitable corollary, comparison - what is one changing from?

If the T20 triumph (and triumphalism) does indeed represent the 'new' India, it would be useful to put it beside the success in the Prudential World Cup in 1983 and the failure only earlier this year in the conventional limited-overs (Fifty50) World Cup. It is also important to place all three teams - phenomena, really - against the contextual backdrop: The panorama of Indian society and political economy.

While in 1983, Malik writes, the high point of the Indian team's triumphant return was being invited for tea with the prime minister but in 2007 congratulatory messages from the PM were insignificant.

The Prime Minister's congratulatory messages are hardly worthy of page one. Neither did anybody expect Mr Rahul Gandhi's appointment as Congress general secretary to displace Irfan Pathan's two-wicket over from news channel specials.

R Kaushik reviews India's World Twenty20 campaign in the Deccan Herald.

And in the financial daily Mint, Amit Varma insists cricket has enough drama in its DNA to be enthralling in any span of time.