Wednesday 30 March 2011

Cricket World Cup: Co-hosts to battle for world crown

GROUP STAGES
Full Results here

Qualified from Group A: Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand
Qualified from Group B: South Africa, India, England, West Indies
KNOCKOUT PHASE
QUARTER FINALS
DateVenueResult
23 MarDhakaPAKISTAN 113-0 beat WEST INDIES 112 by 10 wickets
24 MarAhmedabadINDIA 261-5 beat AUSTRALIA 260 by five wickets
25 MarDhakaNEW ZEALAND 221-8 beat S AFRICA 172 by 49 runs
26 MarColomboSRI LANKA 231-0 beat ENGLAND 229-6 by 10 wickets


SEMI FINALS
DateVenueResult
29 MarColomboSRI LANKA 220-5 beat NEW ZEALAND 217 by five wickets
30 MarMohaliINDIA 260 beat PAKISTAN 231 by 29 runs


FINAL
2 AprMumbaiINDIA 277-4 beat SRI LANKA 274-6 by six wickets


Semi Finals
CO-HOSTS India and Sri Lanka will contest the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final in Mumbai on Saturday after they beat Pakistan and New Zealand in their respective semi finals.

In a fascinating contest, MS Dhoni's India overcame their great rivals Pakistan by 29 runs as they chase their first World Cup win for 28 years.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka - winners in 1996 - proved too strong for New Zealand who hold the unenviable record of having lost all six semi finals in which they have appeared.

Sachin Tendulkar was perhaps inevitably the man of the match as India made it five wins out of five over Pakistan in World Cup matches.

And, although Tendulkar made it 85, he will have rarely played a scrappier innings than this.

The Little Master was dropped four times by the Pakistani fielders and also survived a stumping opportunity and a close lbw.

When he was eventually out, caught by Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi off Saeed Ajmal, India were rocking at 187-5.

Captain Dhoni followed soon after, lbw to the excellent Wahab Riaz for 25, but Suresh Raina hit 36 off 39 balls with the tail to ensure India batted out their 50 overs.

Still, India's total of 260 looked decidedly under-par on a flat pitch especially after the start which Virender Sehwag had given them.

Sehwag scored 38 off 25 balls to guide India to 47-0 from the first five overs but, just like Dhoni later on, he fell lbw to Riaz.

Though Gautam Gambhir (27) also scored at a run per ball, India's innings slowly subsided until Raina ensured a competitive score.

Pakistan began their innings with great belief that they could achieve their target, and they also got off to a good start.

The visitors were 43-0 off their first eight overs and still looked in good shape at 70-1 after 15 overs.

However, opening batsman Mohammed Hafeez then played a poorly judged attempted scoop shot straight behind to Dhoni off Paresh Patel.

Hafeez had made 43 but the nature of his dismissal was hugely disappointing and seemed to affect the rest of his team-mates.

When Asad Shafiq (30) and Younis Khan (13) were both dismissed by Yuvraj Singh, Pakistan had begun to struggle at 106-4.

Then, another two wickets fell in quick succession when Umar Akmal and Abdul Razzaq were bowled by Harbajan Singh and Patel for 29 and three respectively.

And those dismissals left Pakistan's hopes in the hands of Afridi and Misbah Ul-Haq.

Unfortunately, Misbah did not seem to recognise Pakistan's need to keep the run-rate down and scored just 56 off 76 balls.

Afridi scored more quickly but could only make 19 before being caught by Sehwag off Harbajan.

That left Misbah to struggle on with the tail. And they did struggle for the most part as Ashish Nehra took the wickets of Riaz and Gul.

Zaheer Khan had a quiet day by his standards in this World Cup but he took the final wicket of the match, putting Misbah out of misery one ball short of 50 overs.

Virat Kohli took the catch and the Punjab Cricket Stadium erupted into a cacophony of joy except for the small corner housing the Pakistani fans.

For many Indian fans, beating Pakistan will be enough but Dhoni and his team will undoubtedly want to put their name on the trophy.

In order to do so, they will need to beat a strong Sri Lankan team who had a more comfortable passage to the Final after beating surprise package New Zealand.

Daniel Vettori's Black Caps shocked South Africa in the quarter finals but never looked like pulling off another unexpected result in Colombo.

Vettori, perhaps playing in his last ODI, won the toss and elected to bat but it did not take long for Sri Lanka's varied attack to make inroads.

Brendan McCullum was the first victim, bowled by Rangana Herath for just 13 before Jesse Ryder was caught behind off Muttiah Muralitharan for 19.

All the while Martin Guptill had made agonisingly slow progress and the opener was eventually out for 39, bowled by a Lasith Malinga yorker.

Ross Taylor and Scott Styris provided hope of the Kiwis compiling a competitive score but Taylor lost his wicket just before NZ took the batting powerplay.

Styris and Kyle Williamson then attempted to compensate for that loss but, once the latter was trapped lbw by Malinga, the end was nigh.

Nathan McCullum came and went for nine off as many balls and the NZ tail collapsed as Sri Lanka took the final four wickets for four runs in 12 balls.

New Zealand were all out for 217, and Sri Lanka's opening pair Upul Tharanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan set off in pursuit of their target with familiar zeal.

Forty runs were plundered off the first seven overs and, even after Tharanga was dismissed by a brilliant catch from Ryder off Tim Southee, Sri Lanka continued at a steady pace.

At 160-1 in the 33rd over, the contest looked all but decided but then a flurry of wickets somehow gave New Zealand a fighting chance.

Southee and Ryder combined again to remove Dilshan before Mahela Jayawardene did not last long, lbw to Vettori for a solitary run.

When Kumar Sangakkara became the third lost wicket in four overs, Sri Lanka did not look so steady.

Tim Southee then claimed his third wicket of the match, bowling Chamara Silva for 13 and, at 185-5, Sri Lanka were still 32 short.

But Tilan Samaraweera and the injured Angelo Mathews, playing with a runner, got Sri Lanka over the line with 13 balls to spare...

Quarter Finals
... Earlier, Sri Lanka had ended England's dream of a maiden World Cup in the quarter finals with a thumping 10 wicket win in Colombo.

England could not add to their six thrilling group games as the Sri Lankan openers Tharanga and Dilshan both scored centuries to knock off the runs inside 40 overs.

Andrew Strauss won the toss and elected to bat but England again lost early wickets.

Strauss was bowled by Dilshan for five and fellow opener Ian Bell departed in the next over for 25 having been caught by Samaraweera off Mathews.

Jonathan Trott and Ravi Bopara then established a decent partnership for the third-wicket but that came to an end when Bopara was trapped lbw by Murali on 31.

Next, Eoin Morgan joined Trott at the crease and the pair put on 91 valuable runs for the fourth wicket.

But the stand ended when Irishman Morgan - who had been dropped twice - eventually ran out of luck, skying a catch to Mathews off Malinga on 50.

England had really needed the partnership to last if they were to make best use of the batting powerplay although Graeme Swann's departure for a duck hastened the arrival of big-hitting Matt Prior.

However, by that stage, England had been suffocated by the on-song Sri Lankans bowlers as Trott and Prior limped through the powerplay.

Trott departed shortly before the end for 86 from 115 balls and Prior saw off the final over with Luke Wright as England posted 229-6.

Certainly, England had batted a lot worse during this tournament even in games which they won against South Africa and West Indies.

This time, there were useful contributions from Trott, Bopara, Morgan, Bell and Prior but Strauss' men still looked about 30 runs short.

Sri Lanka's openers made a mockery of that assessment, though, knocking off all the runs without losing a wicket or breaking sweat.

The wondrous Dilshan reached his century first, scoring nine fours and two sixes in 107 balls, before Tharanga's ton was stage-managed so that it would give the hosts victory.

This had proved a step too far for England's jaded bowlers as Swann, Tim Bresnan, Chris Tremlett, Bopara, James Tredwell and Wright all tried and failed to take a single Sri Lankan wicket between them.

Notably, from now on, the ECB and the ACB have agreed to keep Ashes series and World Cups in separate winters.

That can only be a good thing as it will surely avoid a repeat of this winter in which many of the England players have spent only three days at home since October.

In the biggest of the quarter finals, India ended Australia's World Cup run, beating them by five wickets in Ahmedabad.

Of course, the Aussies' 34-match tournament unbeaten run had been brought to an end by Pakistan in the final group game but they still held hopes of winning a fourth successive crown.

But, despite a defiant century by skipper Ricky Ponting, surely one of his finest one-day innings, Australia's score of 260-6 never looked enough to prevent a home win.

And so it proved as an unbeaten stand of 74 between Yuvraj (57) and Raina (34) helped India over the line with 14 balls to spare.

Earlier Tendulkar (53) and Gambhir (50) also scored half centuries in a good team performance.

The defeat had immediate repercussions as Ponting brought the curtain down on his captaincy of Test and ODI teams, though he still makes himself available as a batsman.

Statistically, Ponting is Australia's most successful ever captain with 48 wins from 77 Tests, including a run of 16 in a row between December 2005 and January 2008.

However, once Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer and Adam Gilchrist all retired, Ponting struggled to raise the game of a clearly more average intake.

As such, his record is punctuated by three Ashes defeats and the loss of the World Cup which had been held since 1999.

At least Ponting can retire from the top looking back on some notable successes including two World Cups and a 5-0 Ashes whitewash.

South Africa captain Graeme Smith departs with only bad memories of the World Cup as the Proteas gave various demonstrations of how to choke.

In 1999, a run-out mix-up in the semi finals led to a tie with Australia which meant the South Africans went home on account of their weaker group record.

In 2003, at home, they tied a match under the Duckworth-Lewis rule having miscalculated how many runs they needed.

And in 2007, they wilted to 149 all out against an Aussie attack in the semi finals.

This time against New Zealand, Smith's men collapsed again - to 172 all out in pursuit of a highly achievable target of 222 in Mirpur.

Ryder (83), Taylor (43) and Williamson (38 not out) all contributed for the Kiwis but they received little help from elsewhere and the scoring rate seemed to be too slow.

In reply, South Africa lost Hashim Amla early on but Smith, Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers appeared to be dealing with the pressure well.

The Proteas were 108-3 when Kallis was caught by Jacob Oram off Southee but they still had more than half their overs left.

But the loss of Kallis completely knocked the stuffing out of South Africa and the final eight wickets ended up falling for just 64.

Only Francois du Plessis (36) provided any resistance as Nathan McCullum ended up with figures of 3-24 and Oram took 4-39.

All this after South Africa had appeared to shrug off their chokers tag by finishing top of Group A after beating India in the final over.

The soft underbelly had always remained, though, and had already been exposed by England who bowled out the South Africans for a six-run win.

Surprise Group B winners Pakistan made a much better job of their quarter final, thrashing the dismal West Indies by 10 wickets.

Brilliant bowling by Afridi, the tournament's top wicket taker, Ajmal and Hafeez destroyed the Windies who were blown away and bowled out for 112.

Only Shiv Chanderpaul occupied the crease for the Caribbean men but his 44 not out came off 106 balls - no fours and a solitary six - as he struggled to maintain a decent rate while losing partners.

Thus, the West Indies went home having achieved the bare minimum. Hammering Bangladesh was an undoubted highlight but outside of that, they only beat Associate nations Ireland and Netherlands.

Long gone are the days where the West Indies were the hotbed of world cricket, and with Australia's star now having fallen too, the subcontinent has taken over.

That is true for this tournament at least, although the three main subcontinental teams - India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - have, of course, benefited from the familiar conditions.

Still, the coming India v Sri Lanka Final is the first time that ODI cricket's showpiece event has featured two sides from the subcontinent.

And, with stars like Tendulkar and Muralitharan on show - perhaps for the final time on the world stage - it should hardly come as much of a surprise.

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