MUMBAI: India's World Cup winning cricketers returned to a tumultuous welcome on Wednesday as an ecstatic nation rolled out the red carpet for the homecoming of their young heroes. The euphoria of the remarkable Twenty20 World Cup triumph spilled over onto the streets as the bustling metropolis virtually came to a standstill with thousands of frenzied fans turning up to cheer Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men.
The cricket crazy fans braved the rains as they thronged the airport and the 30-km route to the Wankhede Stadium to have a glimpse of the cricketers, who traversed the route on an open top bus. Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil, top brass of the Cricket Board, including President Sharad Pawar, Vice Presidents Lalit Modi and Rajeev Shukla, Secretary Niranjan Shah and chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar were present at the airport to receive the players. It was the kind of welcome Indian team had earlier received after Kapil Dev led the country to the 1983 ODI World Cup and prior to that in 1971 when Ajit Wadekar's team had won the Test series in the West Indies.
Security arrangements had been beefed up at the airport but the players, surrounded by policemen, had a tough time getting out and finally board the open bus. India's 'Captain Cool' Dhoni was the first to come out, along with Administrative Manager Sunil Dev. Star batsman Yuvraj Singh looked little jaded but once he boarded the bus, the dashing Punjab player broke into a Bhangra and all other players looked quite relaxed. Each playing member of the 15-strong team was given a cheque of Rs 80 lakh by BCCI president Sharad Pawar who. "We are felicitating the young team who have done the country proud by playing magnificent cricket as one unit to win the World Twenty20 Cup," said Pawar at the felicitation function watched by 35,000 people in inclement weather. Praising Dhoni's leadership skills both in English and Marathi, Pawar said, "The young team was led extremely well by Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The BCCI is extremely proud of the young brigade which has brought a new dimension to Indian cricket."
He said the rapturous greeting accorded to the team was reminiscent of a similar welcome when Ajit Wadekar's team had returned after creating history by winning a Test series in the West Indies for the first time in 1971. "I would like to praise each and every member of the team, and Yuvraj Singh in particular, for his outstanding effort of hitting six sixes in one over which is some sort of a word record in Twenty20 cricket," Pawar said. The dashing left-hand batsman was rewarded with Rs one crore for his feat by the BCCI and was also presented with a car by Lalit Modi, BCCI Vice-President, in his individual capacity.
Dhoni said the team members knew they had achieved big when they won the T20 World Cup, but did not realise how big was the feat until they landed in Mumbai and were given the tumultuous welcome. More PTI We knew we had done something big when we won the World Cup but did not know how big it was until we landed today in Mumbai. It's a city which never stops working, but we made it come to a standstill today," the Ranchi-born swashbuckling wicket keeper-batsman said. Several BCCI bigwigs were present, along with Maharashtra Sports Minister Vasant Purke and ex-Test cricketers Dilip Vengsarkar, who is also the selection panel chief, Bapu Nadkarni, Wadekar, Nari Contractor and Madhav Apte.
Though invitations had been sent to all the Mumbai cricketers, most others were not seen at the felicitation function which ended in a near-fiasco too when the players went on a victory lap around the ground. A section of the huge crowd, which swelled from around 8,000 in the morning to near-capacity by the time the function started late in the afternoon, broke open the fencing at the south western side and barged into the ground chasing the players doing the lap with the tricolour in hand. It galvanised the posse of policemen, who were taken by surprise at the unsavoury development, to make a charge at the milling crowd numbering around 2,000 and drive them away, while at the same time escorting the players to the safety of the BCCI headquarters inside the stadium premises.
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