When the Twenty20 World Championship was announced for the first time, it was received with ambivalence across the cricketing fraternity. With most teams having very little experience of playing the game's new format, nobody could imagine how it would unfold.

One thing was clear – Twenty20, being a short and brisk version of cricket with a dash of glamour and entertainment, was the anti-thesis of the lacklustre and endless-looking ODI World Cup in West Indies.

After going down against Bangladesh and consequently out of the World Cup in 2007, India were not even faintly considered the potential winners of the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup.

Post-Caribbean debacle, India played Bangladesh and then England before coming to South Africa for the T20 World Championship.

While seniors like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid withdrew their names to pave way for the youngsters, MS Dhoni was named the captain. With new faces under a new leader who had the experience of just one T20 match, nobody appeared to offer India a ghost of a chance.

It took seven matches for Dhoni and his boys to lift the World Cup. It was for the first time after 1983 that the Indian cricket team won a world title.

Now that they are not only the defending champions, but unquestionably the favourites too, CricketNDTV.com takes you down the memory lane… here's a recap of the run-up to India's glorious victory in 2007-08.