It was a moment cherished by a billion Indians on Saturday. The moment India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni lifted the glittering ICC World Cup, ending a 28-year drought of World one-day championship wins for a cricket mad nation. But that moment may be irreparably tarnished, not just for Team India, but all Indian fans.
Because the trophy that captain Dhoni and his teammates so passionately kissed, hugged and adored - and millions of fans worldwide cheered - was a fake.
A mere replica, not the original. This has never happened in the 36-year history of the cricket World Cup.
Did the Indian players know that the cup that Sharad Pawar, president of the International Cricket Council (ICC) and India's agriculture minister, presented to them, the gold-and-silver trophy that President Pratibha Patil lovingly touched at a reception on Sunday, was not the real one?
Interestingly, a day before the final, Dhoni and his Sri Lankan counterpart Kumar Sangakkara had customarily posed with the same replica. And whether their teammates were aware of that? Chances are they were not.
The real trophy, valued at about $130,000 in money terms, but priceless for any cricket lover, was not at the Wankhede stadium, as the world had been led to believe.
It was rotting at a secure government godown, having been seized by the Mumbai Customs on its arrival from Colombo after the Sri Lanka-New Zealand semifinals on March 29.
The reason: The trophy, according to India's Byzantine customs rules, was not eligible for exemption from import duty! And a combination of bumbling babudom, and the ICC's bungling, ensured that it stayed under lock and key at the airport. Now, it will be flying back to the International Cricket Council's (ICC) Dubai headquarters on Monday - without having once being actually touched by the team which had fought so hard to win it.
A top official of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and an ICC official confirmed that the trophy was going back to the ICC headquarters. "The trophy is being taken back to Dubai," said Suru Naik, World Cup tournament director (India). An ICC official confirmed: "The trophy is returning to Dubai on Monday."
The ICC, meanwhile, is getting in a tangle of mis-statements as it tries to desperately cover up its bungling. The ICC spokesperson insisted that the real trophy is never presented to the winning team, and that only the replica is presented to the winners.
But photographs of Australia captains Steve Waugh (1999) and Ricky Ponting (2003, 2007) receiving the original trophy, which was instituted in 1999, prove otherwise.
The base of the original trophy has names of all the winners since 1975 engraved on it while the one presented to Dhoni at the Wankhede Stadium had a blank black base.
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