Heros Of World Cup History: Winner Captins

The World Cup fever is reaching a nice crescendo and we will soon have 14 teams trying to outdo each other for the being called the World Champions. The coveted World Championship trophy is not really as old as the competition. As a matter for fact the World Cup was first held in 1975, while the first time the current trophy was presented to the winning team was in 1999, a good 24 years later!

The Prudential Cup

The first 3 editions of the World Cup were help in England in 1975, 1979 and 1983. The trophy and cup were sponsored by Prudential. The first two editions were won by the mighty West-Indies. The 3rd edition featured West-Indies again but India managed an upset and saw Kapil Dev lift up the Prudential Cup.

The Reliance Cup

The World Cup was moved out of England and into the sub-continent in 1987. The hosts were India and Pakistan while the new sponsors were Reliance.
Australia with a young, athletic and aggressive team ended up winning the cup and with that started one of the greatest era of Australian cricket.

Benson & Hedges World Cup

The World Cup in 1992, moved down-under in Australia and New Zealand. It was the first time all the matches were played with coloured clothing and with a white cricket ball. This tournament featured 9 teams and Pakistan won the cup with some inspiring captaincy by Imran Khan. The trophy was made of crystal and is the only trophy which does not have any type of metal on it.

Wills World Cup

The World Cup was again held in India, Pakistan and Sri-Lanka. The tournament had 12 teams for the first times and also quarter-finals. Arjuna Ranatunga led an unbeaten Sri Lankan side to become World Champions in 1996. This was the only time when a co-host team won the world cup.

ICC World Cup trophy

The World Cup trophy until 1996 was closely associated and named after sponsors. ICC decided to have a unique constant trophy which was not changed very 4 years.
This trophy will probably be used for a another 40 years. What are you views on the various trophies that were part of World Cup history? Which one is your favorite? Do drop in your comments.

Indian Best Squad For World Cup 2011 : Indian Lions

The ICC 2011 World Cup starts on 19th February 2011. The selectors led by K. Srikanth has selected the 15 member team. The team seems to be not really surprising except that it is packed with 3 spinners along with 3 part-time spinners. Rohit Sharma, Robin Utthappa and Pragyan Ojha seem to be the notable people not in the World Cup squad.

1. Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt/wk)
2. Virender Sehwag
3. Sachin Tendulkar
4. Gautam Gambhir
5. Virat Kohli
6. Yuvraj Singh
7. Suresh Raina
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Zaheer Khan
10. Munaf Patel
11. Praveen Kumar
12. Yusuf Pathan
13. Piyush Chawla
14. R Ashwin
15. Ashish Nehra

King Of Records Sachin Tendulkar

King Of Records Sachin Tendulkar : Little Master

In Greek mythology a Titan is someone who is a giant. Giant not by size but by deeds who would their rule their domain with absolute power. The two titans Atlas and Hercules are legends of the mythical world. Hercules for beating the odds all alone with just his strength and wit along with Atlas who literally carries the world on his shoulders. Truly if the game of cricket was mythology then Sachin Tendulkar is a Titan.

Sachin Tendulkar’s shoulder carry no less of a burden and he has often single handedly taken on odds we cannot imagine or identify with. But today in his 442nd One Dayer, with his 17,598th run and a good 100 runs after he had scored his 46th century, the little master that Tendulkar is, scored the first double century ever scored in international limited overs cricket.

He now owns the world record for most runs scored ever, most centuries ever and also the highest individual score ever. In both formats of the game Tendulkar his at the top and by miles. No player has dominated both forms in such absolute terms. At 36, Tendulkar is still breaking barriers and showing living up to the adage that ‘Class indeed is permanent’.

At the time of writing this post Indian bowlers have responded well and joined the Tendulkar party by reducing South Africa to 151/7. Most people who love cricket be they Indian or not will agree that if someone deserved to break the 200 barrier in ODI’s it was Sachin Tendulkar. If you want to watch the moment he scored a double hundred.

Tendulkar is towards the end of his career and when he retires his myth will live on. I say myth because his achievements are truly unreal and mythical. He is no celebrity but a hero. A mythical hero whose very name is enough to inspire future cricketers to awesomeness.

• 1. Sachin Tendulkar is the Highest Run scorer in the One day Internationals
• 2. Sachin Tendulkar is the Highest Run scorer in the Test Cricket
• 3. Most number of hundreds in the ODI 46
• 4. Most number of hundreds in the Tests 47
• 5. Most number of nineties in the ODI
• 6. Most number of man of the matches in the ODI's -61
• 7. Most number of man of the series(15) in ODI's
• 8. Best average for man of the matches in ODI's
• 9. First Cricketer to pass 10000 run in the ODI
• 10. First Cricketer to pass 15000, 16000, 17000 run in the ODI
• 11. He is the highest run scorer in the world cup (1,796 at an average of 59.87 as on 20 March 2007)
• 12. Most number of the man of the matches in the world cup
• 13. Most number of runs 1996 world cup 523 runs in the 1996 Cricket World Cup at an average of 87.16
• 14. Most number of runs in the 2003 world cup 673 runs in 2003 Cricket World Cup, highest by any player in a single Cricket World Cup
• 15. Man of the Tournament in the 2003 Cricket World Cup.
• 16. Most number of Fifties in ODI's
• 17. He is the only player to be in top 10 ICC ranking for 10 years. 18. He is one of the three batsmen to surpass 11,000 runs in Test cricket, and the first Indian to do so.
• 19. First and only cricketer to get Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna. India's highest sporting honor
• 20. In 2003, Wisden rated Tendulkar as d No. 1 and Richards at No. 2 in all time Greatest ODI player
• 21. In 2002, Wisden rated him as the second greatest Test batsman after Sir Donald Bradman.
• 22. he was involved in unbroken 664-run partnership in a Harris Shield game in 1988 with friend and team mate Vinod Kambli.
• 23. Tendulkar is the only player to score a century in all three of his Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Irani Trophy debuts
• 24. In 1992, at the age of 19, Tendulkar became the first overseas born player to represent Yorkshire
• 25. Tendulkar has been granted the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna Award and Padma vibhushan by Indian government. He is the only Indian cricketer to get all of them. And the only cricketer to receive Padma vibhushan.
• 26. Tendulkar has scored over 1000 runs in a calendar year in ODI's 8 times
• 27. Tendulkar has scored 1894 runs in calendar year in ODI's most by any batsman
• 28.First batsman in the history who was given out through third umpire.
• 29. He has the least percentage of the man of the matches awards won when team looses a match. Out of his 61 man of the match awards only 7 times India has lost.
• 30. Tendulkar most number man of match awards against Australia
• 31. Tendulkar was the first batsman in history to score over 50 centuries in international cricket
• 32. Tendulkar was the first batsman in history to score over 75 centuries in international cricket: 93 centuries
• 33. Has the most overall runs in cricket, (ODIs+Tests+Twenty20s), as of 30 June 2007 he had accumulated almost 26,000 runs overall.
• 34. Sachin Tendulkar with Sourav Ganguly hold the world record for the maximum number of runs scored by the opening partnership. They have put together 6,271 runs in 128 matches
• 35. The 20 century partnerships for opening pair with Sourav Ganguly is a world record
• 36. Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid hold the world record for the highest partnership in ODI matches when they scored 331 runs against New Zealand in 1999 (Sachin 186*, Dravid 153)
• 37. Sachin Tendulkar has been involved in six 200 run partnerships in ODI matches - a record that he shares with Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid
• 38. Most Centuries in a calendar year: 9 ODI centuries in 1998
• 39. Only player to have over 100 innings of 50+ runs (41 Centuries and 87 Fifties)(as of 18th Nov, 2007)
• 40. the only player ever to cross the 13,000-14,000 - 15, 000and 16,000 run marks IN ODI.
• 41. He hit the fastest double century in any international match
• 42. Maximum number of 150 plus scores in ODIs
• 43. Tendulkar has scored over 1000 ODI runs against all major Cricketing nations.
• 44. Sachin was the fastest to reach 10,000 runs taking 259 innings and has the highest batting average among batsmen with over 10,000 ODI runs
• 45. Most number of Stadium Appearances: 90 different Grounds
• 46. Consecutive ODI Appearances: 185
• 47. On his debut, Sachin Tendulkar was the second youngest debutant in the world
• 48. When Tendulkar scored his maiden century in 1990, he was the second youngest to score a century
• 49. Tendulkar's record of five test centuries before he turned 20 is a current world record
• 50. Tendulkar holds the current record (217 against NZ in 1999/00 Season) for the highest score in Test cricket by an Indian when captaining the side
• 51. Tendulkar has scored centuries against all test playing nations. He was the third batman to achieve the distinction after Steve Waugh and Gary Kirsten
• 52. Tendulkar has 4 seasons in test cricket with 1000 or more runs - 2002 (1392 runs), 1999 (1088 runs), 2001 (1003 runs) and 1997 (1000 runs).[6] Gavaskar is the only other Indian with four seasons of 1000+ runs
• 53. He is second most number of seasons with over 1000 runs in world.
• 54. On 3 January 2007 Sachin Tendulkar (5751) edged past Brian Lara's (5736) world record of runs scored in Tests away from home
• 55. Tendulkar and Brian Lara are the fastest to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket history. Both of them achieved this in 195 innings
• 56. Second Indian after Sunil Gavaskar to make over 10,000 runs in Test matches
• 57. Became the first Indian to surpass the 11,000 Test run mark and the third International player behind Allan Border and Brian Lara.
• 58. Tendulkar is fourth on the list of players with most Test caps. Steve Waugh (168 Tests), Allan Border (158 Tests), have appeared in more games than Tendulkar.
• 59. Tendulkar has played the most number of Test Matches for India (Kapil Dev is second with 131 Test appearances).
• 60. First to 25,000 international runs
• 61. Tendulkar's 25,000+ runs in international cricket include 17000+ runs in ODI's, 13,000+ Tests runs and 10 runs in the lone Twenty20 that India has played.
• 62. On December 10, 2005, Tendulkar made his 35th century in Tests at Delhi against Sri Lanka. He surpassed Sunil Gavaskar's record of 34 centuries to become the man with the most number of hundreds in Test cricket.
• 63. Tendulkar is the only player who has 150 wkts and more than 15000 runs in ODI
• 64. Tendulkar is the only player who has 40 wkts and more than 11000 runs in Tests
• 65. Sachin hit the first double century in the 40 year history of one day internationals
• 66. Maximum number of boundaries in a single innings
• 67. Heighest score in ODI cricket 200*

Most Quick Fifties In T20 International : Till 2010

Most Quick Fifties In T20 International : Till 2010
Batsman (Country)	Balls	Versus	Venue	Date
Yuvraj Singh (India)	12	England	Durban	19 Sept 2007
David Warner (Austrlaia)	18	West Indies	Sydney	23 Feb 2010
David Warner (Australia)	19	South Africa	Melbourne	11 Jan 2009
Gautam Gambhir (India)	19	Sri Lanka	Nagpur	9 Dec 2009
Mohammad Ashraful (Bdesh)	20	West Indies	Johannesburg	13 Sep 2007
Yuvraj Singh (India)	20	Australia	Durban	22 Sep 2007
Yuvraj Singh (India)	20	Sri Lanka	Mohali	12 Dec 2009
M Jayawardene (Sri Lanka)	21	Kenya	Johannesburg	14 Sep 2007
Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka)	21	Sri Lanka	Nagpur	9 Dec 2009
Dameron White (Australia)	21	New Zealand	Christchurch	28 Feb 2010
Umar Akmal (Pakistan)	21	Australia	Edgbaston	5 July 2010
Michael Hussey (Australia)	22	Pakistan	Gros Islet	14 May 2010
Sanath Jayasuriya (Sri Lanka)	23	New Zealand	Wellington	22 Dec 2006
Chris Gayle (West Indies)	23	Australia	The Oval	6 Jun 2009
Aaron Redmond (New Zealand)	23	Ireland	Trent Bridge	11 Jun 2009
Tillakaratne Dilshan (Sri Lanka)	23	New Zealand	Colombo (RPS)	2 Sep 2009
Alex Obanda (Kenya)	23	Canada	Dubai	10 Feb 2010
Martin Guptill (New Zealand)	23	Pakistan	Auckland	26 Dec 2010
Paul Collingwood (England)	24	New Zealand	Christchurch	7 Feb 2008
Morne van Wyk (South Africa)	24	India	Durban	9 Jan 2011
Andrew Symonds (Australia)	25	South Africa	Brisbane	9 Jan 2006
Marlon Samuels (West Indies)	25	England	The Oval	28 Jun 2007
Nazimuddin (Bangladesh)	25	Pakistan	Nairobi	2 Sep 2007
AB de Villiers (South Africa)	25	Scotland	The Oval	7 Jun 2009
Graeme Smith (South Africa)	25	England	Centurion	15 Nov 2009
Loots Bosman (South Africa)	25	England	Centurion	15 Nov 2009