INDIA WINS CRICKET WORLD CUP 2011

BJP KARNATAKA IT CELL CONGRATULATES THE INDIAN CRICKET TEAM FOR WINNING THE WORLD CUP 2011 AFTER A LONG GAP OF 28 YEARS. JAI HIND

Overcoming initial setbacks and occasional hiccups, India lifted the World Cup in style on Saturday by defeating Sri Lanka by six wickets. After Kapil’s Devils unexpectedly won the Cup in 1983, after 28 long years, and a few heartbreaks in between, the country emerged world champions again. The World Cup final match game see-sawed between the two teams a bit, but never went out of India’s grip. Set a target of 275, India opened their innings on a disastrous note when Lasith Malinga got rid of Sehwag for duck in the second ball of the Indian innings. He struck again to scalp Sachin Tendulkar (18).

Gambhir held on to his ground and plugged further collapse with Kohli. When Kohli (35), who never looked comfortable, fell for a splendid catch taken by Dilshan off his own bowling, Gambhir’s calm presence helped an out-of-form Dhoni settle down and start getting runs.

After leading the Indian fight back, Gambhir was clean bowled by Perrera just
short of what would have been an impressive century under trying circumstances, by four runs. Dhoni who struggled through out the tournament came good at the right moment and ensured that India stayed in the hunt.

Earlier, electing to bat after winning the toss, Jayawardene used his vast experience to good effect and anchored the Lankan innings together on what appeared to be a slow track at the renovated Wankhede stadium. The islanders, desperate to regain the coveted cup after nearly 15 years,lost wickets at regular intervals against the Indians, who were spurred on by a vociferous jam-packed crowd. The Indian bowlers were disciplined in the first half of the innings but conceded as many as 63 runs in the batting powerplay to undo all the good work. Apart from Jayawardene's 88-ball knock, captain Kumar Sangakkara (48) Tillakaratne Dilshan (33) and Nuwan Kulasekara (32) were the other notable performers as the Lankans left India with an asking rate of 5.50 runs per over for clinching the title.

For India, Zaheer Khan (2/60) and Yuvraj Singh (2/49) were the pick of the wicket-takers. Both the Indian new ball bowlers bowled a tidy line and length and did not allow the Sri Lankans to get off to a flying start while the fielding was also sharp.
Pace spearhead Zaheer's first three overs were maidens and that put some pressure on the two Lankan openers who were not being able to capitalise on the powerplay overs.
Tillakaratne broke the stranglehold by hitting the first boundary of the innings in the 5th over by pulling Sreesanth to the square leg fence. In the same over, he produced a delightful cut to the point for his second boundary. Tharanga looked completely out of sorts at the other end as he found it difficult to find the gaps as Zaheer bowled a searching length right through his opening spell. Zaheer drew first blood in his fourth over by evicting Tharanga with an outgoing delivery and Virender Sehwag holding on to diving catch at first slip much to the delight of a capacity crowd at the Wankhade stadium. Tharanga scored just two runs off 20 balls.

The Lankans could manage just 31 runs in the first ten overs, their lowest in the tournament. That was largely because of Zaheer excellent first spell of 5-3-6-1.

Captain Kumar Sangakkara, who joined the action after Tharanga's dismissal, sought to force the pace of scoring by spanking Sreesanth for two consecutive boundaries while Dilshan also hit him for a boundary to get 15 runs off the over.

Dilshan and Sangakkara put on 43 runs for the second wicket before Harbhajan Singh struck by getting rid of Dilshan (33), who scored 500 runs in the tournament.

Dilshan went for a sweep but the ball hit his gloves and lobbed onto his stumps to trigger off wild celebrations in the galleries. Sangakkara and Jayawardene then took upon themselves the task of rebuilding the innings and the duo scored at a decent pace to steer the team to a more comfortable position. Yuvraj Singh, who has been having a dream tournament with both the bat and the ball, was introduced into the attack in the 22nd over but the two experienced batsmen were not really troubled by his left arm spin.

Jayawardene and Nuwan Kulasekara then teamed up ensure that Sri Lanka had a competitive total on the board as they went about accumulating runs in the batting power play which was taken in the last five overs.