Cricket World Cup-2011

          Summer of 2011 was in many senses "Unique". The world had witnessed the Japan Tsunami, Hosni Mubarak resigning in Egypt, Earthquake in New Zealand, in the national events we had A Raja being arrested in the 2G case, historic results in the West Bengal and Tamil Nadu polls, Saina Nehwal winning the Swiss Open, Vishwanathan Anand regaining his world no 1 title. There was one more  thing which was notable in the last summer. Cricket's biggest spectacle had landed in the sub-continent for the third time.

         

         

 The world cup was set up perfectly with great anticipation, with ICC's campaign-"The Cup that Counts" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhrUpmjFY5E)showing 14 captains walking on a tight rope to get their hands on the trophy which also showed the sub-continent street culture, pepsi too didn't stay away, it came up with its campaign- "Change the Game" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFzQUZTuw5Q), which featured the likes of  Dhoni, Pieterson, Bhajji, Sehwag, Shakib, Dilshan ,Malinga and my personal favorite Billy with his "tedhi ungal", Nike also came up with the "Bleed Blue" slogan, and later on released an exciting commercial during the tournament (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvRPz_zoTK4), and how can we forget "De Ghuma ke" - the official theme song! In short, the anticipation of the event was reaching a new high with each and everyday building up to the countdown.

         

         

The Day had arrived ,a grand opening ceremony reflecting the sub-continent culture, team captains being escorted by the hand-pulled carts to the stadium and a perfect sense of fusion with the performances of  Bryan Adams and Shankar-Ehsan-Loy. The on-field action began on the 19th of  february , and what a beginning it was! Sehwag smashing 170, India sealing a win! The tournament  had  begun on a high and more excitement was to follow later on.

         

          As the days went by, we witnessed some fascinating  individual as well as team performances during the tournament, when I look back some incidents stand out, Ind-Eng tied game, Ross Taylor's century against Pakistan, Bangladesh beating England, our game against South Africa etc. But the one highlight from this worldcup will be Ireland's victory over England.

 

          Usually tournaments like World Cups are stated as boring, particularly  in the initial stages as there are associate nations involved with the tournament, but this time round we witnessed some great performances from the associate members. Be it Balaji Rao's (Canada) bowling (he was once among the leading wicket takers of the tournament) , Ryan ten Doeschate's (Netherlands) century against England, George Dockrell -18 year old Irish was also impressive, again the one performance that stands out was Kevin O'Brien's knock- "the fastest world cup century" against the Poms which helped his team chase a mammoth 327. Let's hope these individual performance are backed by a strong team performance in the future and we see more of these "Upsets"  like in the case of Ireland-England game.

 

          Getting back to the main frame tournament,  it had progressed to the quarters, top 8 teams left in the tournament with no major surprises. The "Knock Out" stage had begun, it was do or die for the teams. Biggest among the Quarterfinals' clashes was the Ind-Aus match and  it lived up to everyone's expectations, what a match it was! ( I was fortunate to be a part of that match too). We were privileged to see Ponting scoring a century which later turned out to be his last one day on the Indian soil, and Yuvi guided us home in the end. If the quarterfinal was exciting, the Semi final was the "mother of all battles" India vs Pakistan, nothing less than "Superlative" can describe that battle. Two Nation heads had landed to Mohali for the "Cricketing Diplomacy". Governments in almost all the states and provinces of both the nations declared official Holidays on 30 March in view of this match. The contest lived up to the expectations and India came out as the victorious team. On the other half, it was Sri Lanka who booked themselves the ticket to Mumbai.

 

          The stage was set-World Cup Final,  2nd of April, 2 sub continent giants,  renovated Wankhede Stadium and over a billion eyes watching them! Wankhede stands had literally turned out to be a sea of  blue, and among the 45,000 cricket fans there were some high profile celebrities too. But the men that mattered the most were the 22 players, battling it out to be a part of  history. Sri Lanka batted first and scored over 270 which we chased down after a minor hiccup in the beginning. That winning six from Dhoni's bat will be engraved in our minds through out our life time. The cricketing saga ended with India coming out as the Champion. 

 

          The world cup was truly special. Action packed from the start till the end. A year after the event, its unfortunate to see match fixing shadows over the Indo-Pak  match. But let's take nothing away from our team, the joy it gave to over a billion people is irreplaceable, those late night celebrations after each Indian victory is still pretty much in my mind and I am pretty sure I won't  be the only person. Indian cricket has gone through many ups and downs (more downs than ups) but the fact remains, come 2015 World Cup and India will go there as the "Defending Champion". No one can take that away from us. This world cup has given us an opportunity , a moment of pride. It united all of us.  Many years from now, we can tell our next generation with our heads held high that "I was there when India won the world cup!"  As a cricket fan I only have one thing to say to each and every person  associated with the event, "Thanks for the Memories". Over to Australia-New Zealand now!!!