Before he led India to a World Cup victory, MS Dhoni's earliest identity as a cricketer had been attached to the Twenty20 format. It was India's victory in the World Twenty20 under Dhoni that was one of the factors that led to the speedy launch of the Indian Premier League. Dhoni then led his team, the Chennai Super Kings, to a double last year, winning the IPL and the Champions League Twenty20 in South Africa.

Yet, more than once during this World Cup, Dhoni has demonstrated that he is conscious of the course taken by Indian cricket in the last three decades and where Saturday's victory now stands.

At the media conference following India's six-wicket victory, Dhoni was asked by an English reporter to explain what the World Cup victory actually meant to Indians who, Dhoni was told, did not enjoy much success in other world-level sport. Yuvraj Singh, the World Cup's Player of the Tournament sitting next to Dhoni, raised his eyebrow, and his captain took the opportunity to say that India had been growing as a nation that supports sport, citing the examples from shooting, badminton, hockey and football.

But cricket, Dhoni said, "was special" to Indians because of the change that the 1983 victory achieved for Indian cricket. "People started loving the sport and you then saw two individuals making their debut, Anil Kumble and Sachin Tendulkar." He then said that the successful careers of Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, which began in 1996, marked the next step. "This was the chain of players because of whom we are in this position right now. We earn a lot of money, we get a lot respect and what we are trying to do is to pass it onto the next generation."