Monday, February 14, 2011

Facts on the history of Cricket World Cup - 2

With the few days ahead of the Cricket World Cup, let’s look at some of more records and highlights of the previous tournaments. 

These are mostly related to individuals who excelled in their respective areas. Let’s see whether we are lucky enough to see any of these records being broken in 2011.

So once again, before we move into the post details, let’s wish our Sri Lankan Team all the very best, and that they’ll be able to make our paradise island proud, by winning the tournament.
  • The first “Man of the Series” award was presented in the 1992 World Cup. For his 456 runs in the tournament and for the outstanding display of captaincy the award was won by Martin Crowe of New Zealand.
  • Sachin Tendulkar holds the record for the most number of runs scored in World Cups. Upto the World Cup held in 2007, he had scored a total of 1796 runs. He also holds the record for the most number of runs in a single world cup (673), which he scored in the 2003 World Cup.
  • Gary Kirsten holds the record for the highest score in a World Cup ODI, when he scored 188* against UAE in the 1996 World Cup. 
  • The highest partnership for any wicket is 318, between Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly scored against Sri Lanka in 1999.
  • Glenn McGrath dominates the bowling records, with the highest number of wickets in a single world cup (26), most career world cup wickets (71) and best bowling figures (15/7 – against Kenya, 2003 World Cup).
  • The highest score in a World Cup ODI was scored by India who scored 413/5 against Namibia in 2007, while Canada were bowled out for the lowest score ever in 2003, when they were dismissed for 36 by Sri Lanka.
  • Most consecutive wins in the history of World Cup is 23 by Australia.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Facts on the history of Cricket World Cup - 1

In one of my posts during last month (January, 2011), we looked at some of the key highlights of the history of the Rugby World Cup. This was targeting the fact that the next Rugby World Cup is scheduled to be held later this year.
Through this post, I’m taking you through some of the key highlights of the other ‘mega’ sporting event for this year, which is just around the corner.
The ICC Cricket World Cup is always an event that draws the attention of local spectators, and I’m sure you would be interested to know some of those fascinating highlights that I’m going to share now. So let’s start off wishing the Sri Lankan the very best for the World Cup 2011.
  • The first three World Cups held in England in 1975, 1979 and 1983 were sponsored by the insurance giant Prudential Insurance.
  • In the 1983 Sri Lanka took part as a Test-playing nation, and Zimbabwe qualified through the ICC Trophy. A fielding circle was introduced, 30 yards (27 m) away from the stumps.
  • The World Cups of 1987, 1992 and 1996 were named as Reliance World Cup, Benson & Hedges World Cup and Willis World Cup respectively. In the 1987 World Cup held in the subcontinent the games were reduced from 60 to 50 overs per innings.
  • The 1992 World Cup, held in Australia and New Zealand, introduced many changes to the game, such as coloured clothing, white balls, day/night matches, and an alteration to the fielding restrictions. The South African cricket team participated in the event for the first time, following the fall of the apartheid regime and the end of the international sports boycott.
  • The current trophy was created for the 1999 championships, and was the first permanent prize in the tournament's history; prior to this, different trophies were made for each World Cup.
  • The 2003 World Cup in South Africa was the first to sport a mascot, Dazzler the zebra. An orange raccoon-like creature known as Mello was the mascot for the 2007 Cricket World Cup. The mascot for the 2011 Cricket World Cup is Stumpi, the elephant.
  • The locations for the 2015 and 2019 Cricket World Cups would be Australia/New Zealand and England respectively.