CRICKET WORLD CUP

Cricket world cup is men’s ODI (One day international) championship. The first world cup was hosted by England in 1975. ICC world cup 2011 started on Feb 19, 2011 and ended on April 2, 2011. Fourteen teams took part and they were in two groups.

Group A                                    Group B

Australia                                     India

New Zealand                              South Africa

Pakistan                                    West Indies

Zimbabwe                                  Bangladesh

Sri Lanka                                   England

Kenya                                      Ireland

Canada                                     Netherlands

Out of the 14, 4 were associate teams; means they don’t have test status. The four teams are Kenya, Canada, Ireland and Netherlands. 2011 World cup was co –hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. This is the first time Bangladesh is co-hosting the world cup. The winner of each match gets 2 points, loser 0 points and if the match is tied or not played each team gets 1 point. The Points table lists the no. of points taken by each team.

Quarter finals, semi-finals and finals were knock-out games. The first four teams from each group went to quarter finals. The teams are Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, England and West Indies. Number 1 team from each group takes on number 4 from the other group; number 2 takes on number 3 from other group. The winners will go to semi-finals. New Zealand won South Africa, Pakistan won West Indies, India won Australia and Sri Lanka won England. The Teams for Semi-finals were India took on Pakistan and Sri Lanka took on New Zealand. India and Pakistan are considered arch rivals. India beat Pakistan and Sri Lanka beat New Zealand. So the finals were played on April 2nd, 2011 in Mumbai with India taking on Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s captain was Kumar Sangakkara and India’s captain was Mahendar Singh Dhoni.

Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat first. Sri Lanka took a very good score of 274 with the last ball being a 6. Indians took on the challenge and chased the total with 10 balls to spare, the Indian captain M.S Dhoni also finished the game with a 6! India won the world cup after 28 years!!!!. People were expecting Sachin Tendulkar to hit his 100th ODI century but that did not happen. Yuvraj Singh was awarded “Man of the Tournament” and M.S Dhoni “Man of the Match”.

 2015 world cup will be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand and the log of 2015 world cup is already released.
 It was fun to watch the 2011 world cup and looking forward to 2015 world cup