Whoa Baby!

I don't know how much justice I can do to the match, but I can't, absolutely CANNOT but write this. So here goes.
A short recap of the pre-final matches for those out of touch with cricket. India-England: India made 218 from their twenty, with Yuvraj hitting six sixes in the 19th over off Stuart Broad (though the fault was entirely Andrew Flintoff's!) and reaching 50 off 12 balls in the process. England never really got off and India won by 18 runs. India-SA: I don't think anyone expected us to win this one, but we did anyway. With a meagre 153 on the board, we looked to be heading straight out of the WC. But our bowlers did a fantastic job, not only winning the match, but sending tournament favourites SA home* as well. India-Australia: Even fewer people thought we'd make it through this one, but I daresay a lot more hoped. Semi-finals against the world champs and our boys had nothing to prove and no expectations to live up to. And we beat the Aussies by 15 whole runs (HUGE margin in T20) defending 188. We'd made it to the finals, where Pakistan lay in wait.
India-Pakistan finals. Three words that can send chills up your spine and set your heart aglow at the same time. All post college extra classes were mass bunked. All roads were buzzing with people dying to get home between 5 and 5.30. At six, the roads were empty. The world (or all I know of it, anyway!) was glued to the TV.
India started fabulously, with Yusuf Pathan, big bro of Irfan, hitting a HEE-YOOOGE six in his very first over in international cricket, off Md. Asif nonetheless. Then we began to falter, and before we knew what on earth hit us, we were struggling at 40-2, and salvaged some pride only thanks to Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma. 157, enough on the Jo'burg belter? Never! At least that's what we THOUGHT.
Pakistan came out to bat, and RP Singh took a wicket in his very first over. We were thrilled (duh!) but that was short lived - our very own Sree Santh went for 21 in his first. The next 14 overs are summarised below:
Kamran Akmal clean bowled by RP, Imran Nazir run out to a fabulous 50 yard direct hit by Uthappa, Younis Khan out to Joginder Sharma with Yusuf Pathan taking his first international catch, Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi both caught off Irfan Pathan's bowling in the same over, and Yasir Arafat bowled by him in his next. All of this with A LOT of belting. But with four overs left and 54 left to score, we all thought, 'Ah! We can make it easily', having done exactly that against the Aussies. But the Pakistanis were not giving up that soon.
With Harbhajan's third and India's seventeenth over going for 3 sixes, Dhoni had to give the ball to one of his strike bowlers. And who did he choose? Sree Santh. Who got absolutely thulped. Pakistan needed 35 to win with 3 wickets in hand before his over, after, they needed 20 with 2 wickets in hand. He'd given the 15 (much to our horror) but taken the all important wicket. Dhoni then chose to go with RP Singh for the penultimate over, which was a mini-stroke of genius because he gave away just 7 runs and took Umar Gul for nought. Pakistan needed 13 of the last over with a wicket in hand. Misbah Ul-Haq still eluded, though. Joginder, who'd gone for plenty earlier, was brought on to bowl the last. I was nothing short of a ball of nerves.
With the first ball of the over being called wide, the curses flew thick and fast. 12 off 6. The second ball was a swing and a miss from Ul-Haq. 12 off 5. The third ball broke a billion hearts as it flew for a straight six. 6 off 4, and all hope gone. The next ball was something which my mum and I agree has got nothing to do with cricket or even strength of character or prudence. It's just karma. Just scripted. The Gods simply wanted us to win. Misbah Ul-Haq croaked for the second time in a week and a half, scooping the ball to short fine-leg and straight into Sree Santh's wide open arms. We had clinched a thriller.
The hour that followed was a flurry of celebrations. The entire past two weeks have been, actually. A reverie of sorts. I'm just glad we came out a micron luckier.
We celebrated late into the night. (Okay, only 12, but that's late by our standards!) Today, as expected, tons of jokes and articles have started doing the rounds. Eg.

Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Misbah.
Misbah who?
Mis-bah 5 runs!

College was brilliant, with most of us dressed in blue (and even a handful in Team India jerseys) and singing 'Chak De India!' and 'We Are The Champions!'. And so the saga continues. Life goes on, but happier. The Men In Blue have taken our blues away.

*Technically, they were at home anyway, but you get what I mean!