Apr 4, 2011

ICC World Cup 2011: India are World Champions!


Gautam Gambhir made 97 and Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni smashed an unbeaten 91 off 79 balls as India won the World Cup for the first time since 1983 with a six-wicket victory over Sri Lanka on Saturday.

Sri Lanka, who won the toss and elected to bat in the day-night final, rode on Mahela Jayawardene's 103 not out off 88 balls to pile up 274-6 in their 50 overs.

India, cheered by a sell-out crowd of 33,000 at the Wankhede stadium, surpassed the challenging target with 10 balls to spare as Dhoni pounded Nuwan Kulasekara for the winning six.

India had slumped to 31-2 by the 6th over when sling-arm fast bowler Lasith Malinga dismissed Virender Sehwag (0) second ball and had star batsman Sachin Tendulkar (18) caught behind in his 4th over.

Gambhir, who was dropped on 30 and escaped a run-out chance on 49, turned the match around by adding 83 for the third wicket with Virat Kohli and 109 for the fourth with Dhoni.

Yuvraj Singh, who was named the man of the tournament, partnered his skipper till the end with 21 not out after Gambhir was bowled by Thisara Perera in the 42nd over when 52 more were still needed.

Dhoni's men emulated Kapil Dev's compatriots who won the 1983 World Cup by beating the West Indies in the final at Lord's in London.

The victory, watched by Indian President Pratibha Patil and Sri Lanka's head of state Mahinda Rajapakse, was the first occassion a team had won the tournament on home soil.

It was only the third time in 10 World Cup finals that a side batting second had chased down the victory target.

The finale gave Tendulkar, the world's most successful Test and one-day batsman, his first World Cup title in six appearances since 1992.

The defeat ended Sri Lankan star bowler Muttiah Muralitharan's dream of being part of a second World Cup-winning team, having won the title under Arjuna Ranatunga in 1996 in Lahore.

Muralitharan, who turns 39 next month, went wicketless in eight overs to end his career with a record 800 Test and 534 one-day wickets.

Confusion reigned at the toss, which had to be performed twice after match referee Jeff Crowe did not hear Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara's call when Dhoni threw up the coin.

Jayawardene shored up Sri Lanka's innings before tailenders Nuwan Kulasekara (32 off 30 balls) and Thisara Perera (22 off nine) helped their team smash 63 runs in the last five overs of power-play.

India's left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan dried up the flow of runs at the start and his two wickets made him the tournament's leading bowler alongside Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi with 21 wickets each.

Zaheer opened with three successive maidens and then struck with the first ball of his fourth over when Sehwag dived to his right in the slips to remove Upul Tharanga for 2.

Fast bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth lifted the pressure by conceding 15 runs in his fifth over that included a no-ball and a warning for running in the danger area in his follow-through.

Sreesanth, who was preferred ahead of spinner Ravichandran Ashwin after Ashish Nehra was ruled out with a fractured finger, was thrashed for 52 runs in his eight overs.

Tillakaratne Dilshan, going into the final as the tournament's leading scorer with 467 runs, made 33 when he was bowled by off-spinner Harbhajan Singh to make Sri Lanka 60-2 in the 17th over.

Jayawardene put on 62 for the third wicket with Sangakkara (48) and 57 for the fourth with Thilan Samaraweera (21).

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011: Highest Scores

PlayerHighestAgainstPlace
V Sehwag175v BangladeshDhaka
AJ Strauss158v IndiaBangalore
TM Dilshan144v ZimbabwePallekele
AB de Villiers134v NetherlandsMohali
WU Tharanga133v ZimbabwePallekele
LRPL Taylor131*v PakistanPallekele
SR Tendulkar120v EnglandBangalore
RN ten Doeschate119v EnglandNagpur
KJ O'Brien113v EnglandBangalore
HM Amla113v NetherlandsMohali

Apr 3, 2011

ICC World Cup 2011: Most Man of the Match Awards

PlayerMatchesMOMRunsWickets
Yuvraj Singh (IND)9436213
Umar Akmal (PAK)722400
KC Sangakkara (SL)924650
Shahid Afridi (PAK)828421
TM Dilshan (SL)925008
AB de Villiers (RSA)523530
Imrul Kayes (BAN)621880
KAJ Roach (WI)621913
SR Watson (AUS)722903
KA Pollard (WI)711802

ICC World Cup 2011: Highest Wicket Taker

PlayerMat.WktsEcon.Best
Shahid Afridi8213.62 5/16
Zaheer Khan9214.833/20
Tim Southee8184.313/13
R. Peterson7154.254/12
M. Muralitharan9154.094/25
Yuvraj Singh9155.025/31
Imran Tahir5143.794/38
Umar Gul8144.493/30
Kemar Roach6133.886/27
Brett Lee7134.324/28

ICC World Cup 2011: Highest Run Scorer

PlayerMatRuns
HS
Avg
SR
100
50
T. Dilshan9500
144
62.50
90.74
2
2
S. Tendulkar9482
120
53.55
91.98
2
2
K. Sangakkara9465
111
93.00
83.78
1
3
J. Trott7422
92
60.28
80.84
0
5
U. Tharanga9395
133
56.42
83.68
2
1
G. Gambhir8393
97
43.66
85.06
0
6
V. Sehwag8380
175
47.50
122.58
1
1
Yuvraj Singh9362
113
90.50
86.19
1
4
AB. de Villiers5353
134
88.25
108.28
2
1
A. Strauss7334
158
47.71
93.55
1
1

ICC World Cup 2011: Statistics & Records

Batting Records

Bowling Records

Fielding Records

Partnership Records

Team Records

Mar 31, 2011

India in Final; Beat Pakistan by 29 runs

Disciplined bowling by India saw them beat Pakistan by 29 runs on Wednesday to set-up a World Cup final against Sri Lanka in Mumbai on Saturday.

Pakistan, chasing 261 for victory, were dismissed for 231 with a ball to spare after all of India's five bowlers took two wickets apiece.

Misbah-ul-Haq, who top-scored for Pakistan with 56, helped take them from 208 for nine to a situation where an unlikely 30 was needed off the last over.

But Zaheer Khan held his nerve, bowling four dot balls before Misbah holed out to Virat Kohli to the delight of a capacity crowd.

India's 260 for nine after winning the toss against their arch-rivals was built around man-of-the-match Sachin Tendulkar's 85.

But they might have made considerably less had not the star batsman been dropped four times in an innings that still left him one short of a hundred international hundreds.

Tendulkar was dropped again, on 45, when Younus at mid-off failed to hold on to a mistimed drive off leg-spinner Afridi.

Riaz, however, had Kohli caught by Umar Akmal at backward point and next ball clean bowled Yuvraj with a swinging full toss.

Tendulkar was given a third reprieve by Pakistan on 70 when wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal failed to hold a tough chance off an edged Afridi leg-break.

And he was on 81 when a leaping Umar Akmal at short mid-wicket dropped a checked drive against off-spinner Hafeez.