ICC World Cup: Top 10 Highest Batting Averages

Player Name	Match	Runs	Highest	Avg.	S.Rate
L Klusener	14	372	57	124.00	121.17
A Symonds	18	515	143*	103.00	93.29
SB Styris	18	767	141	69.72	89.08
IVA Richards	23	1013	181	63.31	85.05
R Dravid	22	860	145	61.42	74.97
GM Turner	14	612	171*	61.20	64.01
RR Sarwan	14	584	92	58.40	83.54
SR Tendulkar	36	1796	152	57.93	88.21
HH Gibbs	25	1067	143	56.15	87.38
Sourav Ganguly	21	1006	183	55.88	77.50

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.