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Pakistan's overwhelming victory over Sri Lanka in the Twenty20 World Cup was poignant in the end and sort of poetic justice overall.
The final itself, involving two nations in turmoil, was soothing both to the heart and mind.
It was an unexpected final however. South Africa were the favourites to lord it over all at Lord's, India the popular choice and the West Indies the sentimental underdogs. But Pakistan turned the tables with one inspiring victory after another following a poor start with a defeat against England.
Sri Lanka, on the other hand, cruised along despite being in the group of death and took their place in the final as if by right. No one could believe that it was the same team that had come under a barrage of militant gunfire just recently leaving many players and coaching crew with pieces of shrapnel in their bodies.
Pakistan in the end won because they played more freely, while Sri Lanka looked hesitant right through the final, which therefore, was devoid of cutting edge tension.
The Pakistani fans most certainly deserve this victory. And as man of the moment Shahid Afridi said, it should bring a smile to the faces of millions back home in Pakistan who are living through hell on earth.
My take is that only sports can conjure moments like these. In 2007, Iraq won the Asian Cup soccer against all odds, internal and external, beating Saudi Arabia 1-0. It was unbelievable and till then many thought it was only possible on celluloid.
Like the present Pakistani and Sri Lankan teams, there was not a single Iraqi player untouched by miseries of unimaginable violence. At least three players had lost relatives, including goalkeeper Noor Sabri whose brother-in-law was killed just before the tournament began.
It was more horrifying for Harwar Mulla Mohammed, who converted the first penalty in the semi-final shootout victory over South Korea, as he heard the news of his stepmother's death just two hours before the match against Vietnam.
"This is normal for us. We are used to this now. Not just the players, but everyone in Iraq," Tabra had then said.
True to his words, the team, comprising of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds and being coached by a Brazilian, had to bear more bad news before the final following two bomb attacks which killed at least 50 people and injured 135 in Baghdad as crowds celebrated the semi-final victory over South Korea.
Till then, I thought, such things happened only in films, like the 1981 epic Escape to Victory, a touching drama of a soccer match between allied prisoners of war who are interned in a German prison camp during the Second World War.
Other true stories have not been as dramatic but nevertheless heartwarming. Liberia, for example, played in the World Cup qualifiers of 2000-01 amidst a civil war. Argentina followed suit the next year when a monetary crisis gripped the nation.
Coincidentally, sport has also helped heal the wounds of war, even if temporarily, like in 1967 when the Nigerian civil war was halted briefly to receive the Santos team led by Pele.
In 2006, Ivory Coast's exploits in the World Cup and African Nations Cup prompted peace talks and eventually resulted in the end of a bloody civil war.
But sadly football has also been a cause for many conflicts, diplomatic wrangles and even a brief war. Even minnows Bahrain have seen it all: a lost Handycam at the National Stadium a few years ago before a key match against Japan sparked a spying row. Later that year, Jamaica and Trinidad came close to severing cross-island links in connection to a friendly match with the Kingdom in the build-up to a World Cup qualifier.
Coming back to cricket and Twenty20. More than anything, this World Cup has proved that the shortest version of the game can also be all about tactics and technique and not only about big and wild hitting. At another level, it also comes close to matching the cricket version of pornography.
Like, two people doing what is traditionally done by one - like chasing a ball, to keep it simple. The batsman shuffles, switches sides, takes unimaginable positions, like Tillakaratne Dilshan, and uses both sides of the bat to have a ball.
Bowlers, on the other hand, no longer simply run to bowl, like Stuart Broad, but turn and twist to distract the batsman. Funnily, and true to cricket tradition, the batsman is getting away freely while the bowler has come under the match referee's radar.
But there is still room for tactics and technique in Twenty20. Pakistan and India proved it in their own ways - India was beaten tactically by the West Indies, who let the enterprising Dwayne Bravo and Lendl Simmons do the job, and technically by England, who attacked the famous Indian batting line-up with vicious short-pitched deliveries.
Pakistan mixed both to make a deadly concoction and beat South Africa and Sri Lanka, till then unbeaten sides, in back to back matches to become the new titans of Twenty20. Pakistan are worthy champions indeed.
