Somewhere in Australia, a man reviled in India not so long ago must be having a hearty laugh. When Greg Chappell became the coach of the Indian team, he brought a vision with him. That vision involved creating a team of youngsters; players who were eager to learn and experiment; players uncluttered with their own importance; fit and athletic players who ran well and fielded better; players who played for each other rather than for themselves; players that were multi-dimensional. That was what would win them the World Cup, he said, and people sneered at his ignorance of preferring the Rainas and Sreesanths to the Gangulys and Zaheers.

Worse still, he lost no time in taking out the Gangulys and the Zaheers from the team equation itself. He found himself none too impressed with the Tendulkars. He tried to persuade the nation to accept his vision; a nation that was more obsessed with whether Tendulkar got his 40th ton than whether or not India won its next match; a nation that wanted their 'Dada' to be in the team even if every bowler, including domestic ones, were queuing up to take a shot at him. Simply put, the nation thought Indian cricket had been handed over to wrong - even dangerous - hands.

The usual Indian politics followed that has kept our nation back for so long in cricket and other fields, and India went into the World Cup of 2007 with what the nation wanted, rather than what the man hired to chalk out the World Cup strategy wanted. The result was a first-round exit.

Some six months later, a new team is formed for what is the latest form of cricket - a slam-bang format known as Twenty20. The big 3 decide (???) to make themselves unavailable for the format, the team gets a huge dose of unknown, untested "fresh blood" cricketers; multi-dimensional, fit and athletic (most of them), who run well and field better, non-celebrities (most of them), a team eager to prove themselves, led by another of those younger breed of players uncluttered with his own importance. The result - India wins the Twenty20 World Cup, beating teams they looked nowhere near matching six months ago.

It is not about winning the Twenty20 cup. It is about the attitude, the fearlessness, the team work, the work ethic that Chappell spoke about, which seemed to be in abundance in the Twenty20 winning team.

Could this team have won the 50-50 World Cup, 2007? Maybe, maybe not! Even this team could have lost in any of those tightly contested matches against England, Australia, South Africa and Pakistan in the just-concluded Twenty20 cup. It is not about that! It is the nation showering accolades on the players who fit the vision Chappell had for Indian cricket, except that when Chappell was here, the same nation was busy putting obstacles everywhere. Our egos wouldn't let a white man win against our heroes, our Gangulys and our Tendulkars; when they "opted" out themselves, it was ok.

As I said, if the man has a sense of humour, Chappell would be having a hearty laugh.