Cricket legend Viv Richards bigs up India's ‘next level’ T20 World Cup win, also praises the team's 12th man

India scored 250 plus scores thrice in their last four matches, and who wouldn't be awestruck after that?

Updated on: Mar 12, 2026, 15:36:51 IST

Written by Prateek Srivastava

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Sir Viv Richards is a two-time World Cup winner with the West Indies. He was part of the Caribbean team that won the inaugural World Cup in England in 1975, and then four years later again — this time also scoring an iconic ton in the final against England.

Viv Richards has spoken of India in glowing terms. (Getty)

So he is the man who understands what winning a World Cup means, what winning back-to-back World Cups means to a team, to its fans and to the cricket world at large.

Also Read: BCCI told Sachin Tendulkar they were looking for his replacement; IND legend said ‘are you serious?’, retired days later

Richards, who was a nightmare for bowlers in his day thanks to his explosive style of batting, has let his opinion be known on the recent T20 World Cup win by India in its own backyard. Out of their nine matches, India played 8 games on their home soil; only the match against Pakistan was played outside the country, in Sri Lanka, which was also the co-hosts.

The great batsman speaks!

Richards has validated India's win on all counts. Like, there shouldn't have been another winner. "India are a great team. India have taken the game to a different level, more so in the limited overs, the ODIs, the T20s, and when you have masses of people, the billion, it is a great present for them, because of the love, and the passion they show for the game.

"I think it is the right result because of the love and the passion, and the country it was played in," the West Indian told PTI.

And Richards is right about India's domination in white-ball cricket. In the last four ICC limited-overs events, they have reached all four finals, and except the 2023 World Cup final in Ahmedabad, they have won the remaining three: the 2024 T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies, Champions Trophy in the UAE and Pakistan and now the 2026 T20 World Cup.

India continues to be the most happening place for cricket. All of their matches were packed to the rafters. Their last three matches at the Eden Gardens, the Wankhede Stadium and the Narendra Modi Stadium saw extraordinary support for them. One has to say the crowds were the team's 12th player in many ways, and helped them not a little. Richards is of course, right. When you have a great team and great supporting crowds, you deserve to win.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Prateek Srivastava
Prateek Srivastava is a senior sports journalist having been in the profession for two decades now. He started his print career with the India Today Group and later also worked for the Asian Age. In 2009, sensing the wind of change, he switched to the digital media and joined Mobile ESPN. There, he covered the 2011 Cricket World Cup and 2010 Hockey World Cup as a venue reporter. He did plenty of voice-over work too, over there. After leaving Mobile ESPN, Prateek went on to work for Cricketnext, Gocricket and Cricbuzz. At Gocricket (Times Internet Limited), he covered the 2014 T20 World from Bangladesh. There he also received a team leadership award, given at the end of the month. Prateek has also covered the 2016 T20 World Cup in India, this time working for Sportz Interactive. He also worked for Chinese giants Alibaba over two years and led their ""Short News"" content team at UC Browser. While cricket is Prateek’s expertise, he has also done a lot of golf. In fact, he has covered India’s first two European Tour events back in the late noughties. He has also done extensive writing on football having been associated with the Indian Super League for three seasons. Finally, Prateek is a literature aficionado and swears by Philip Roth and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and when he doesn’t joke, he is usually quiet and at work.Read More

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