ICC World Cup: Top 10 Highest Wicket Takers

Name	Team	Wickets	Match
GD McGrath	Australia	71	39
M Muralitharan	Sri Lanka	68	40
Wasim Akram	Pakistan	55	36
C Vaas	Sri Lanka	49	31
Zaheer Khan	India	44	23
J Srinath	India	44	33
AA Donald	South Africa	38	25
Jacob Oram	New Zealand	36	23
Brett Lee	Australia	35	17
GB Hogg	Australia	34	21

ICC Cricket World Cup: Most Man of the Match Awards

Name	Match	MOM Awards
SR Tendulkar	36	8
GD McGrath	39	6
L Klusener	14	5
GA Gooch	21	5
IVA Richards	23	5
ST Jayasuriya	38	5
DC Boon	16	4
SK Warne	17	4
SC Ganguly	21	4
ME Waugh	33	4
BC Lara	34	4
A de Silva	35	4

ICC Cricket World Cup: Highest Run Scorer

Player	Match	Runs	HS	Avg	100	50
SR Tendulkar (India)	36	1796	152	57.93	4	13
RT Ponting (Aus)	39	1537	140*	48.03	4	6
BC Lara (WI)	34	1225	116	42.24	2	7
ST Jayasuriya (SL)	38	1165	120	34.26	3	6
AC Gilchrist (Aus)	31	1085	149	36.16	1	8
Javed Miandad (Pak)	33	1083	103	43.32	1	8
SP Fleming (NZ)	33	1075	134*	35.83	2	5
HH Gibbs (SA)	25	1067	143	56.15	2	8
PA de Silva (SL)	35	1064	145	36.68	2	6
IVA Richards (WI)	23	1013	181	63.31	3	5
SC Ganguly (India)	21	1006	183	55.88	4	3
ME Waugh (Aus)	22	1004	130	52.84	4	4

ICC Cricket World Cup: Top 10 Highest Innings Totals

Team	Score	Over	Innings	Opposition	Place	Year
India	413/5	50	1	v Bermuda	Port of Spain	2007
Sri Lanka	398/5	50	1	v Kenya	Kandy	1996
Australia	377/6	50	1	v South Africa	Basseterre	2007
India	373/6	50	1	v Sri Lanka	Taunton	1999
New Zealand	363/5	50	1	v Canada	Gros Islet	2007
West Indies	360/4	50	1	v Sri Lanka	Karachi	1987
Australia	359/2	50	1	v India	Johannesburg	2003
Australia	358/5	50	1	v Netherlands	Basseterre	2007
South Africa	356/4	50	1	v West Indies	St George's	2007
South Africa	353/3	40	1	v Netherlands	Basseterre	2007

Young cricketers fall victim to fast money: Steve Waugh

Describing the recent spot-fixing scandal as "unfortunate", former Australia skipper Steve Waugh said young cricketers are giving in to the prey of fast money.

"We need to take appropriate measures to curb fixing. Now a day, a lot of youngsters are playing cricket. They are getting fascinated to making easy and fast money by the bookies," he said.

"There has to be stringent measures and the guilty should be heavily punished at any cost. This is very unfortunate," Waugh added.

Suspended by ICC, Pakistan Test skipper Salman Butt and pace duo of Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer are under the scanner for their alleged role in spot fixing scandal exposed by a British tabloid.

India have missing home advantage: SA Coach van Zyl

South Africa coach Corrie van Zyl felt India have lost World Cup home advantage due to the IPL, largely because of the experience of playing conditions that the world's top players have gained and their dealing with the strength of the most zealous crowds in the cricketing world.

"India has traditionally been a difficult place to tour but more recently teams have learnt to win in Indian and sub-continent conditions," he said.

"India in particular, where most of our preliminary matches will be played, is a wonderful place to play cricket as the people love the game and the support is phenomenal. Teams have learnt to embrace the atmosphere rather than be wary of it and we are looking forward to playing in these packed stadiums," he said.

"This is also the 1st major ICC event in the subcontinent since the IPL was launched. Players from around the world have now played lots of limited over cricket in India. This may reduce India's home ground advantage. Delhi, for example, is like a 2nd home to AB de Villiers."

South Africa will set up for the tournament with ODI series against Zimbabwe, Pakistan and India and van Zyl said he wants his wards to win those series and then carry that form into the World Cup 2011.

"We will prepare and uses the upcoming series that we have to play on the ICC calendar as preparation but at the same time not lose the focus on taking each series as a campaign on its own," he said.

The Protease first match will be against the West Indies, and van Zyl stressed the importance of getting off to a winning start.

"Playing the West Indies in Delhi means that we have to do our home work regarding the ground and its history and how this will affect our play against the West Indies. We obviously need to see how Delhi suits them and how we need to use our strengths to have the advantage in these conditions," he said.

Sri Lanka Tri-series, good training for World Cup: Taylor

New Zealand skipper Ross Taylor said the tri-series in Sri Lanka would make Black Caps some valuable practice of playing in sub-continent conditions before the 2011 World Cup, which India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will co-host.

"Definitely, ideal preparation. Obviously, coming from New Zealand, the pitches are going to play differently but the conditions that we have here and in India and in Bangladesh will be similar to what we are going to experience in the World Cup," said Taylor.

"So this experience is going to be valuable for the team and for the youngsters leading in to the selection for the World Cup," he added.

Taylor, asked to lead the side in absence of Daniel Vettori, feels the series will also be a good chance for the players to prove their worth in sub-continent conditions and impress the selectors.

"I think it's good, it gives some other players an opportunity and some youngsters the chance to play in the sub-continent as well. If we can have a squad of 20-odd to pick from and push each other, I think it will augur well for the upcoming months and for the World Cup," he said.

Having played a few practice games, Taylor said his team is in a good shape for the series.

"Every time you play cricket, you obviously play to win. We have come here to win, we won warm-up games and probably have got an edge over them in playing the competition.

Tri-series in Sri Lanka 2010