Armchair psychologists have had a field day analysing and assessing the body and verbal language of those who played "in the spirit of the game". Post-colonial spunk in India does not lend itself to easy interpretation. Not surprisingly, gobbledygook is rampant. I don’t have any Freudian or existential theory to the riddle of how and why our team suddenly developed a spine. Nevertheless, the three candidates who deserve praise—Jagmohan Dalmiya, Harbhajan and Sreesanth—are all small-town boys in mentality who did not carry any historical baggage when it came to taking on the white men in the ICC or the white men claiming to be world champions. I doubt whether this role could ever have been performed by Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman or Kumble, burdened as they are by history, culture and metropolitan manners. Put this down to another victory for small-town India.