Info Of 2007 Cricket World Cup
World Cup No. 9
Teams 16
Minnows Bermuda, Canada, Holland, Ireland, Kenya, Scotland
Format
The lessons of 1999 and 2003 were learned and so the Super Eights qualifying was from four groups of four. However, the advertising men were left gawping as India and Pakistan failed to make it through the first round, Bangladesh and Ireland taking their places. While that thrilled the neutrals, it caused a flurry of "never again" chart from Asia and Dubai. The only points carried forward were the ones against the other qualifiers from the same group, which at least should have given the second round some meaning.
Innovations
This was the first World Cup to use Powerplays, that aside, it was pretty much as before.
Early running
When West Indies beat Pakistan in the opening match, few suspected what was to follow, both on and off the field, and in terms of a series of dreadful matches. Pakistan were eliminated in their second game after contriving to lose by three wickets to Ireland, a result entirely overshadowed by the death hours later of Bob Woolmer their coach. The whole tournament was stunned and then thrown into doubt when Jamaica's police claimed he had been murdered. It turned out he had not, but things never recovered. India, meanwhile, were well beaten by Bangladesh and then sent packing by Sri Lanka. New Zealand and England went through from Group C - England courtesy of wins over Canada and Kenya - while Australia and South Africa barely broke sweat in a group containing Scotland and Netherlands.
Super Eights
Bangladesh and Ireland's qualification meant that, in reality, the semi-finals were between four of six, and with England and the hosts looking all at sea (literally in Freddie Flintoff's case), the excitement was minimal. Of 24 games only three were remotely tense, the best the first and last, England v South Africa and a meaningless clash between England and West Indies with Brian Lara's bowing out.
The semis
Sri Lanka beat New Zealand by 81 runs thanks to Mahela Jayawardene's 115 not out and New Zealand were always well behind the clock. Australia thrashed South Africa who once again chocked, crashing to 27 for 5 before limping to 149 - Australia strolled home with 18 overs to spare.
The final
The best two sides made the final, but the farcical scenes at the end of the match summed up the utter shambles that almost everyone - other than the relentlessly upbeat ICC - knew the tournament had become. Adam Gilchrist thumped 149 off 104 balls - even that was shrouded in controversy as he admitted to using a squash ball inside his glove as an aid - as Australia scored 281 for 4 in a rain-reduced 38 overs. Sri Lanka chased gamely and while Kumar Sangakkara and Sanatah Jayasuriya added 116 for the second wicket they were in with a shout but they fell in quick succession and then farce descended in the gloom. The umpires left the field for bad light as Australia celebrated but then the officials, amid scenes with left cricket a laughing stock, brought the players back on. By the end, nobody could see what was happening in the middle.
Last hurrah
Some big games departed ... Glenn McGrath went out on a high with a third winners medal and the man-of-the-Tournament award; Inzamam-ul-Haq went in tears after his dismissal against Zimbabwe, the pressure of the captaincy and Woolmer's death all too much; Lara might have felt like crying after being left high and dry by Marlon Samuels in front of a full house in Barbados. How many of an ageing Australia side will be back in 2011 is open to doubt. As for the coaches, 14 of the 16 who went into the tournament had moved on with six months.
First hurrah
There was a paucity of good young talent, the cupboard was fairly bare. Shaun Tait of Australia impressed but it was very much a tournament for the old guard.
Not to be forgotten
Sadly, this will be remember for all the wrong reasons. It was overlong - a record 56 days - and the organisers managed to stage an event in the Caribbean and then do all they could to strip out every facet that makes watching the game there such fun. Overzealous security was again to the fore, ticket prices were silly - Barbados finally broke ranks, slashed the cost and were rewarded with full houses - complete idiocy meant that at some venues people had to walk long distances to get to games, and local business inflated their prices, and in many cases got burned. The booing of local and ICC dignitaries at the final presentations told its own tale. But ultimately the ninth World Cup will be remembered for the death of Woolmer and the media hysteria which followed.
Info Of 2003 Cricket World Cup
The hosts of the eighth World Cup wanted it to be the greatest yet. In financial terms, it was profits of $US194m represented a huge increase on the $51m made in 1999 but in other respects, it fell short. Indeed, this traditional organisers' boast rather came back to haunt the South Africans, who headed a pan-African triumvirate also including Zimbabwe and Kenya. A great tournament needs dramatic tension, and the brilliance of the Australians never allowed it. In winning all their 11 matches, the champions repeatedly displayed talent, audacity and a superiority over all rivals. Not since West Indies ran away with the prize in 1979 (like Australia, to retain the trophy they had won four years earlier) had anyone won the World Cup with such lan.
The nearest Ricky Ponting's side came to losing was in their final group match, at Port Elizabeth, when England had them 135 for eight needing 205. Doing no more than was necessary to keep up with an asking-rate that only once crept above six an over, Michael Bevan and Andy Bichel saw them home with breathtaking coolness. Ponting was outspokenly critical of the St George's Park square, and no wonder: its slow surface hinted at one way the gap between Australia and the others might be narrowed and, as Ponting feared, the favourites again hit trouble in two subsequent games on the ground. Even so, they still ran out decisive winners in both, against New Zealand in the Super Six and Sri Lanka in the semi-final.
On true surfaces and these were in the majority Australia were unstoppable. Runs poured from their bats while disciplined bowling drew opposing batsmen to their ruin; out of a possible 110 wickets, Australia claimed 101. Never was this truer than in the final at the Wanderers, one of the most bountiful grounds for batsmen. With the two strongest batting sides on show, including the player of the tournament, Sachin Tendulkar, there were high hopes of a taut, run-filled finale. But Australia, surprisingly put in by Sourav Ganguly in a move that betrayed Indian nerves, ran up too many runs. Ponting himself led the way with an unbeaten 140 from 121 balls that was a masterpiece in measured ferocity: off his last 47 balls he hit eight sixes and 90 runs in all. This was a record individual score for a World Cup final, as was Australia's team effort of 359 for two. Tendulkar fell in the first over of the reply and India, though they hit spiritedly, were never in the game.
Ganguly's side nevertheless emerged from the tournament in credit. Not fancied to do well in the conditions, they steadily grew in confidence after a shaky batting performance in their opener with Holland and put together a winning streak of eight matches including one in their first meeting with Pakistan for almost three years with some of the most entertaining cricket on show. An eleventh-hour decision to restore Tendulkar to the opener's role he favoured proved inspired. He ran up a record run aggregate of 673, more than 200 ahead of his nearest challengers his own captain, Ganguly, and Australia's captain, Ponting.
Australia would have beaten a Rest of the World XI had they been asked. They swatted away difficulties like troublesome flies. Predictions that the middle order was suspect, and that they would regret selecting Andrew Symonds ahead of Steve Waugh, proved unfounded. As well as a crucial innings in the semi-final, Symonds played the innings of his life an unbeaten 143 off 125 balls to carry his side from a precarious 86 for four to 310 in their opening encounter against Pakistan. It set up a resounding victory in a game that began with Australia at their most vulnerable.
Info Of 1999 Cricket World Cup
With about five playable hours of daylight remaining on the longest Sunday of the year, Darren Lehmann struck the ball towards the Lords Grand Stand for the boundary that gave the seventh World Cup to Australia.
This concluded a final so one-sided that it descended from anticlimax into bathos. A match that had started at 11.15, half an hour late, was all over by 4.35 because Pakistan, the most exciting side in the tournament, had gone to pieces when it mattered most.
The first World Cup final, at Lords 24 years earlier almost to the day, had lasted nearly ten hours. This one was over shortly after it started. The nature of one-day cricket is such that two evenly matched teams can easily produce a lop-sided match, simply because of the breaks of the game. It was, however, true to the uniquely perverse nature of Pakistani cricket that it should happen to them on such an occasion.
Thus the best Test team in the world became the world one-day champions, uniting the two forms of cricket into one undisputed title for the first time since West Indies lost their invincibility in the last Lords final 16 years before. Hindsight made it seem like manifest destiny. It was obvious all along, wasnt it? But it was nothing of the kind.
When Australia had gone to Old Trafford three Sundays earlier for their final group match, they were in severe danger of the earliest possible exit; two Sundays after that, during the last Super Six match, Australian journalists and officials had been making calls to check on airline seat availability, which would have been firmed up had Herschelle Gibbs not celebrated too soon and literally thrown away a catch offered by Steve Waugh.
In the semi-final four days later, as Damien Fleming prepared to bowl to Lance Klusener the player of the tournament with South Africa needing one to win, Australia were effectively goners. But that game, arguably the greatest in the history of one-day cricket, produced a final twist that no one could have foreseen or invented. Klusener and Allan Donald had a horrendous running mix-up, the match was tied, and Australia went through on net run-rate, of which, unfortunately, more later.
Australia’s improbable lurch into the final was in complete contrast to their opponents confident strut. The Pakistanis lost three successive games which did not matter, but returned to form in time to earn their place at Lords by blowing Zimbabwe and New Zealand away by huge margins. But it has been noticed before that the way to win World Cups and not just in cricket is to fiddle quietly through the early matches and peak at the end. This is a lesson South Africa, who blazed their way through the early stages of all three World Cups in the 1990s without ever reaching the final, urgently need to learn. It is, however, rather difficult to convert this observation into a strategy. Steve Waugh’s diamond-hardness, and the bowling gifts of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, seem in retrospect like the determining factors of the 1999 World Cup. But it could so easily have been very, very different.
The overall quality of the Australian team meant that no one not even an Englishman could begrudge their right to the trophy. But Pakistan and South Africa would have been worthy winners too. The class of these three teams (one might add India’s batting as well) gave the tournament enough lustre to make the whole thing seem like a triumph. Five months later, the rugby World Cup, also held in Britain, was much nearer a flop.
Yet the success came against a background of travail almost as great as Australia’s. England’s main objective in staging the World Cup was to reinvigorate the nation’s love of the game, which had been flagging after so many years of failure by the national team. For the organisers, the worst-case scenario was that England would go out quickly.
Info Of 1996 Cricket World Cup
World Cup No. 6
Teams 12
Minnows Holland, Kenya, United Arab Emirates
Format Two qualifying groups of six: each team played the other five in its group to determine the quarter-finalists. In other words, it took 30 matches to eliminate Zimbabwe and the three minnows, then seven more to reduce the remaining Test nations to one winner.
Innovations 15-over fielding restrictions had made their debut in 1992, but 1996 was the year the pinch-hitters really seized their opportunity. Sri Lanka, Australia and India exploited the wide open spaces with aggressive early batting. England didn't. The third umpire also made his first appearance in front of the TV monitor.
Early running Sri Lanka finished top of Group A despite beating only India of the fancied teams; Australia and West Indies forfeited their matches in Colombo rather than travel to a city where over 1000 people had been injured in a terrorist bomb only three weeks earlier. But South Africa were the clear favourites after five hyper-efficient victories in Group B. Gary Kirsten's 188 not out against UAE was a Cup record. England, meanwhile, lost all three of their games against Test nations, wobbled against Holland, and lost their lunch against UAE (at least, Neil Smith did).
The quarters Jayasuriya savaged England, who went down to their tenth successive defeat by a Test nation, but skipper Atherton got off lighter than Wasim Akram, who dropped out of Pakistan's tie with India, citing a side-strain. His Lahore house was stoned after they lost by 39 runs. A spectacular 130 from NZ's unheralded Chris Harris left Australia in need of their highest total batting second to win an ODI: Mark Waugh's record third hundred of the tournament (he had already become the first man to make successive Cup tons) made sure they got it. But the surprise packages were West Indies, as Lara's 111 inspired them to a 19-run win over South Africa.
The semis A Calcutta crowd of 110,000 boiled over as India slid to 120 for 8 in pursuit of Sri Lanka's 252. Fires were started in the stands, leading to a win "by default" for SL. India's decline had come as a surprise after Srinath removed ballistic openers Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana in the first over, but de Silva's 66 led a recovery. That was nothing, however, when compared with Australia's comeback: they were 15 for 4 before Law and Bevan dragged them up to 207 for 8, then West Indies cruised to 165 for 2 in the 42nd over. But four wickets from Warne and some tactical wizardry from Mark Taylor precipitated an incredible collapse: West Indies lost 8 for 37 in 50 balls, and Richardson was stranded on 49 not out.
The final No-one had dominated a World Cup final to the extent that de Silva did here. He took two catches and three wickets, including Australia's top-scorers Taylor and Ponting, then strolled to an elegant 107 not out. Handicapped by a slippery, dew-covered ball, Australia dropped several chances, but never looked like defending 241.
Last hurrah Javed Miandad, the only man to play in every World Cup to date, finally bowed out. He batted three times, making 11*, 5, and 38 in the quarter-final. And Robin Smith's selectorial misfortune continued: he helped provide England's brightest moment, a record 147-run opening stand against Pakistan, and was dumped for good immediately after the tournament. It was also World Cup curtains for Richie Richardson, Roger Harper, Asanka Gurusinha, Ramiz Raja, Manoj Prabhakar, Phil DeFreitas, Dipak Patel, Andy Waller and Craig McDermott (three Cups each). McDermott bowled only three overs before returning home with a calf strain.
First hurrah Waqar Younis, surprisingly, was appearing in his first World Cup (back injury in 1992). Atherton and Gough made their debuts in the deflating defeat by New Zealand, for whom only four players had prior Cup experience. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ricky Ponting and Glenn McGrath added to growing reputations while Romesh Kaluwitharana is remembered as half of an all-conquering opening partnership, even though he made only 73 runs at 12.17.
Not to be forgotten Kenya beat West Indies in a qualifying match at Pune on Leap Year Day: Steve Tikolo, Kenya's only professional, top-scored with 29 out of 166, then Maurice Odumbe and Rajab Ali took three wickets apiece as West Indies crumbled for 93. The prize wicket of Brian Lara fell to a catch by portly, bespectacled keeper Tariq Iqbal; some thought it was the only ball he had held onto all day.
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