Team India, admired for its superpower

India's stupendous victory in the T20 World Cup final has electrified the nation. This celebration in the team's prowess in the country's favourite sport is well-deserved and very well understandable. Winning the world's premier tournament of cricket's most popular format is a feat for which Rohit Sharma's squad will be feted long after the ticker tape has been cleared. But there is a bigger picture at play here that goes beyond Saturday's match, or even the team's sterling performance throughout the tournament. It's India's recognition as a cricketing superpower not just among a billion-plus Indians but fans of the sport across cricketing nations.

The national side is quite obviously cheered on by the nation's cricket-lovers for both nationalistic and/or cricketing reasons. But apart from the 'INDIA-AAA!' brigade that almost drown out all sounds of support for others, lovers of the game in Australia, South Africa and England have become more vocal in their being impressed by India's cricketing squad. If in football, even non-internationally solid sides like India have legions of Argentina, France, Germany or Spain fans - who admire them not for reasons of 'national affinity' but for their sheer footballing prowess - in cricket, India is what in the 1970s-80s West Indies, with its battery of bowlers and batsmen like Vivian Richards, now is: a team worth having posters of its players on any wall, not just Indian ones.

Even countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh have cricket aficionados who, despite harbouring non-cricketing disaffection towards India as a country, are Men in Blue fans. This is not just about India, it's about the ardour across boundaries when you're best in something. This is what solid soft power looks like.