When R Praggnanandhaa nailed his game, it sealed an utterly dominating two weeks. On air, Vidit Gujrathi, one of the unsung heroes of this team’s campaign, said this would go down as a win for the ages never to be repeated again.

Even as the Open team converted their positional superiority into points, the women’s team had to take the scenic route to global glory. D Harika, playing on the top board, was inconsistent while R Vaishali had slightly lost her rhythm in the second phase. But it didn’t matter as Divya Deshmukh, a world champion at age-group level, and Vantika Agrawal, on Board 4, became giants.

So, even as Harika and Vaishali had to grind their way to wins or salvage draws, Deshmukh and Agrawal enjoyed serene progress in terms of wins. In the end, they won two individual gold, an apt reward for what they had done to the collective cause.