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I have been a cricket admirer from early 2000s and had seen the Indian cricket team going through various phases. When I initially grown interest in cricket it was the era of Indian cricket that was starting to shine back and just picked up by Sourav Ganguly who was then Indian captain. From an inexperienced side he had grown the team to a world class team in only three to four years and made them reach to their second cricket world cup final after twenty years in 2003. This was one of the highs Indian team had been only not better than probably Australian team of that era.
But slowly after the world cup of 2003 the Indian players started lacking form and had a dark phase for next few years till 2007 when India exited the world cup from group stages. After that many aged players retired from cricket including Ganguly, Dravid and Kumble one of the legends of Indian cricket. But most of the younger players from the 2003 final and the master Sachin Tendulkar was still in the side while a wicket keeper batsman M S Dhoni who just started to show some promise had been handed over the captaincy.
This was the phase when Indian team started to look and join back the bests in the world of cricket. After Dhoni started captaincy India and world was took by surprise from the beginning. Starting from 2007 T20 WC with no experience of T20 the Indian cricket team has won it. This was an turning point of Indian cricket. The promise shown by the young players of 2003 like Sehwag, Zaheer, Yuvraj, Harbhajan who has now became senior in the time along with some other new players like Gambhir has now been on the road of making the team one of the best.
This was followed by India winning the 2011 CWC in home soil through the iconic six to win the match by Dhoni himself also marking the first world cup victory for the master after his around twenty years of career. In this world cup another young prodigy had became a part of the Indian team who had served the team long. He is Virat Kohli who also tasted the world cup victory in his very first world cup. This was Indias second world cup victory in total.
Then few years later in 2013 Sachin Tendulkar retired ending an era of Indian cricket. But new faces like Rohit, Shami were on the making by then. Ashwin was also one of the finest to represent India but his most achievements are in Test cricket. With these players India had played the 2015 CWC as the defending champions. But unfortunately India lost to the Australians in the semi final. Rohit, Kohli, Shami, Ashwin had started to become stars by that time.
With these names a new addition in the team was Bumrah who was an IPL finding but still has been one of the finest fast bowlers of Indian team. With this team between 2015 and 2019 India had dominated all forms of cricket be it ODI, Test or T20 and had been the obvious favourites for the 2019 world cup. Virat Kohli had been the captain in between this time. In the 2019 CWC also Kohli was the captain which sees the last match of Dhoni as well in international cricket.
In 2019 CWC India again exited from semi final getting defeated by New Zealand. With a star packed team this was very disappointing for India cricket. This seen the last world cup for Dhoni and also Kohli has been removed from captaincy after this. New captain of the Indian team was appointed Rohit Sharma with the vision of 2023. In 2023 India was again a balanced side with some of experienced players including Kohli, Sharma, Shami, Bumrah along with many new faces like Kuldeep, K L Rahul and others. India after dominating through out the world cup lost the final to Australia in home soil. Though after this Rohit won a T20 WC but afterwards he was removed back from captaincy.
This time with a vision of 2027 CWC a young Shubhman Gill is assigned the captaincy. With the lights of Kohli, Sharma still present in ODI cricket there is always a larger hope. India recently winning their third T20 WC title possesses a lots of potential in T20 format and power hitting. So what are Indias chances for the 2027 CWC?
With the lights of Kohli, Rohit, Bumrah, Siraj, Shami along with young guns like Abhishek, Yashashvi, Kuldeep, Hardik, Suryakumar, Samson and others under the captaincy of Shubhman Gill, a gentleman of cricket India must be one of the favourites to win the world cup. The team shows a combination of talent along with experience. Though this has been most of the time Indian team what really needs is execution in the major times during the tournament. So with a lots of promise from the team lets look forward and can definitely hope for India to win their third CWC trophy in 2027.
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