Schedules for Semifinals

Scorecard of teams after Super Eight stage and there position.

Rank Super Eight Played Won Tied Lost Points
1 Australia 7 7 0 0 14
2 Sri Lanka 7 5 0 2 10
3 New Zealand 7 5 0 2 10
4 South Africa 7 4 0 3 8
5 England 7 3 0 4 6
6 West Indies 7 2 0 5 4
7 Bangladesh 7 1 0 6 2
8 Ireland 7 1 0 6 2

Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and South Africa qualified for the semifinal rounds.

Schedule for Semifinals are as follows:
Date Venue Teams
24 Apr Jamaica Sri Lanka vs New Zealand
25 Apr St. Lucia Australia vs South Africa

All the best for all four teams. I hope we will see real clashes of Titans now.

Finally a Victory

Finally West Indies registered its first victory in Super Eight stage of Cricket World Cup 2007 against Bangladesh. Bangladesh failed to negotiate the pace and bounce of the West Indies bowlers and crashed to a 99-run defeat in their final World Cup Super Eights match at the Kensington Oval on Thursday.

The Bangladesh bowlers did well to restrict the hosts to 230 for five in the allotted 50 overs, but floundered from the very beginning in the chase and were bowled out for 131 in 43.5 overs.

Powell claimed three wickets for 38 runs while the ever dependable Collymore accounted for two batsmen.

Now West Indies will face Enland in their final match of Super Eight stage on saturday. This is also a last international match of Brian Lara who is taking retirement after this match.

Farewell to Brian Lara

West Indies captain Brian Lara announced his retirement from international cricket on Thursday ending a record-breaking career as a batsman.

Lara, said his last match for West Indies would be Saturday's World Cup match against England at the Kingston Oval.

"I've given this extensive consideration and on Saturday I will be bidding farewell to international cricket as a player," Lara told a news conference after West Indies beat Bangladesh by 99 runs in a Super Eights match on Thursday.

The 37-year-old Trinidadian holds the record for the highest Test score (400 not out) and in the first-class game (501 not out). He amassed highest career run total of 11,953 runs in 131 Tests and 10,387 runs in 298 One-Day Internationals .

Lara is the only man to have broken the record for the highest Test score, lost it and then regained it. His career would have spanned 17 years and produced some of the finest moments in the history of cricket.

Among the records that Lara holds is the one for most Test runs in an over. He made 28 off one Robin Peterson over in South Africa in 2003. He also has the third highest - 26 off one Kaneria over in that final double century of his in Pakistan. With that final double century in Pakistan, Lara joined the exclusive club of 6 men who have scored a century before lunch in a Test match.

He is the West Indies' most capped player in ODIs (299 after his final match) and second in Tests (131, Courtney Walsh played in 132). He holds virtually all the important West Indies batting records.

Before making his surprise announcement Lara had been asked to reflect on how he would like to be remembered as a player.

"I just want to be remembered as someone who went out there and tried to entertain -- it is a sport where people pay to come through the turnstiles and watch you and it is most important that someone can leave and say they have enjoyed watching Brian Lara play and enjoyed watching West Indies play.

"Another thing I am really proud of myself for is that I have been knocked down so many times as a player, as a person, and it is that strength, that I suppose comes from my parents, to be able to pick myself up each time and go out there in the face of adversity.

"That is something that I didn't read in a book or wake up in the morning with, it is deep down and it is a part of my family trait."

Our best wishes are with Brian Lara for all his future endeavor.

Four Matches are Left

Super Eight stage of Cricket World Cup 2007 is nearing to over. Four matches are left which includes a most awaited big clash between Australia and New Zealand. Both the teams are already qualified for semifinals. Other two probables are Srilanka and South Africa. So its fight for positions in Super Eight Stage only. It will be a big clash where three teams would like to meet Australia only in finals rather then semifinals.

Indian Cricket - the road ahead ...

India's poor performance in WC 2007 has filled 100 billion people with dissappointment, pity!, anger and what not. Team India is passing through a horrible time that no one would even dream of. All coz of the tendency of just screwing it up when it matters. Had they shown some sort of mental fitness, the scenario would have been 180 degree different. But alas, it lies all messed up.

Just with this funny performance, several things come to my mind like :

• India is the second-most populated country in the world. The country where cricket is followed more than religiously. The pujas and the maha-yagnas conducted all over the place for cricket.
• Financial and social benefits that the players enjoy in this cricket-mad country. On every second nukkad the children are seen playing the game.
• The players that were selected for the mission world cup. Their attitude being reflected in the game. Also hinting about the training pattern for world cup.
• The heros in Sachins, Sehwags, Gangulys and Dravids having more than 40,000 runs under their belt. Two world-class spinners in Kumble and Bhajji.
• The rich and wealthy BCCI.
• The importance of the game for being heard in the parliament sometimes.
• The mixed 'luck and results' that India had in the past. The shameful loses to the glorious victories.
• The opportunity ahead, the things that could put things in place.
• The need for a more effective selection process, encouraging the game at grass root level.
• The performance based payments that could keep players on their toes. (Of course they make most of their wealth through ads, but the players, specially seniors will feel really bad if they are in the lower bottom half)
• The rotation policy for the having the best team for the best event. No point in playing the best 11 in Ind-Ban series and winning it 3-0 or 5-0 or whatever. Having a world cup to world cup agenda, almost like the 5-year plan (or rather unlike the '5 year plan')
  
• I just sometimes sit and wonder about the time when Indian cricket board will feel and groom the passion the budding kids show, for the kids play mini-cricket at their homes when its raining outside!

cheers!

Just for Fun

A funny mail which comes in my email-inbox so many times that i am putting it here. Enjoy alternative jobs opportunities for fallen stars of Indian cricket team.

Super Eight Matches Schedule

Here is the schedule of 24 matches in Super Eight stage of Cricket World Cup 2007.

March 27: West Indies vs Australia (Australia won)
March 28: South Africa vs Sri Lanka (South Africa won)
March 29: West Indies vs New Zealand (New Zealand won)
March 30: Ireland vs England
March 31: Australia vs Bangladesh
April 01: West Indies vs Sri Lanka
April 02: Bangladesh vs New Zealand
April 03: Ireland vs South Africa
April 04: England vs Sri Lanka
April 07: Bangladesh vs South Africa
April 08: Australia vs England
April 09: Ireland vs New Zealand
April 10: West Indies vs S Africa
April 11: England vs Bangladesh
April 12: Sri Lanka vs New Zealand
April 13: Australia vs Ireland
April 14: S Africa vs New Zealand
April 15: Bangladesh vs Ireland
April 16: Australia vs Sri Lanka
April 17: South Africa vs England
April 18: Ireland vs Sri Lanka
April 19: West Indies vs Bangladesh
April 20: Australia vs New Zealand
April 21: West Indies vs England

India may be Out ...

ICC don't want to forget India even though India is out of the league after first round. ICC fined India for slow over rates against there final match of first round in Cricket World Cup 2007.

India was one over short of its target with respect to allowed time which made ICC match referee Jeff Crowe to fine Indian team.

As per the rule captain will lose 10% and rest of the team will lose 5% of their match fee.

So along with Fans and Advertisers, ICC also showing real path to Indian team.

Players and Advertisements..

The poor performance by the Indian players have bowled them out of the ads. Yeah, most of the companies are expressing their dissapointments over the game the players played in WI. Companies like Videocon, Pepsi, Sansui are among the top ones who had an all exclusive multi-crore world cup ad campaigns. Some reactions..

Videocon promotions will not feature Dravid and Dhoni for the time.

Dravid may or may not lead the Indian team but Sansui defenately plans to sack his captaincy.

Pepsi had to close down 'Ladega to Jeetega' ads, coz their tigers have done everything but 'Ladega'.

Some other cos take it differently. Exide says that they wont go by the performance of Dhoni for such a short period and they will continue to have him as their brand ambasaddor till November 07, when the 2 yr contract expires. Exide was the first company to sign Dhoni, in 2005 - even before he made it to the Indian team.
Sunfeast too backs up the 'har ghar mein Sachin' campaign.

There have been cases where ppl from an area have taken a oath! yeah oath that they will not buy any of the products endoresed by the Indian cricketers.

Common this act is just not done.

Anil Kumble Announced Retirement

India’s leading wicket-taker Anil Kumble has announced his retirement from one-day cricket and he will continue in Test cricket only.

Kumble has 547 Test victims and 337 victims in one-dayers and last performed in ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 against Bermuda.

Kumble's best Test match performance was against Pakistan where he took all ten wickets in an innings in New Delhi in 1999.

He will be seen performing next against Bangladesh in May in two Test matches.

Cricket World Cup Song

I was just browsing through the Internet and found this cool Cricket World Cup song: The Game of Love and Unity. A 4 minute 52 seconds song is not too bad and grows on mind after a while.

You can listen here.

Diamond Studded Cricket Ball

A leading Indian gem and jewelery manufacturer Gitanjali Group has unveiled specially designed 30-carat diamond studded cricket balls.

This diamond studded cricket ball held by Bollywood actress Mahima Chaudhary is only one of two that will be presented to the best Indian cricketer and the best interim player of the world cup 2007 tournament which is currently being played in the West Indies. Each diamond ball is studded with 5,728 pieces of diamonds with a worth of approximately $68,500.

ICC and YouTube Video Clips

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has asked Google owned YouTube to remove all World Cup clips claiming copyright infringement. "We are here to protect the commercial broadcast rights for the ICC and GCC and there is an issue here," Christopher Stokes, chief executive - online rights protection agency 'NetResult', which represents the ICC told to a reporters.

Now, following this if YouTube actually deletes the WC2007 video files, there will be a huge dissappointment in the cricket fan world as they will not have an easy access to the missed magical moments of the world cup.

Also, taking this further, if the online video hub removes all the cricket, soccer, and other clips involving copyright infringement, it would sadden the regular layman youtubeists as they will not be able to broadcast their tastes on the events with such a mass.

Records at world cup ..

There have been a lots of occasions of sudden ups and downs for any player or team in the previous editions of the tourney. It took some of the tough players to storm hard at the opponent teams, and when the time was really tough, the tougher players have risen to the occasion and have seen their team through.

This reminds me to quote the players who have played a vital role in the world cup wins for their countries. Lets have a look at some of the previous records:

Man of the match at the finals of each world cup

1975 world cup : West Indies --> MoM : Clive Llyod (102 runs)
1979 world cup : West Indies --> MoM : Viv Richards (138*)
1983 world cup : India --> MoM : Mohinder Amarnath (26 and 3-12)
1987 world cup : Australia --> MoM : David Boon (75)
1992 world cup : Pakistan --> MoM : Wasim Akram (33 and 3-49)
1996 world cup : Sri Lanka --> MoM : Aravinda de Silva (107 and 3-42)
1999 world cup : Australia --> MoM : Shane Warne (4-33)
2003 world cup : Australia --> MoM : Ricky Ponting (140*)

Since 1992 world cup the 'Player of the world cup' is being awarded. The players who left their mark even if their teams may not have lifted the cup that year :

1992 world cup : Martin Crowe, captain of New Zealand was really consistent with his bat and also brought in innovative idieas with slog over approach in first 15 overs and spinner in Deepak Patel leading the bowling attack.

1996 cup was dominated by the then minnows Sri Lanka, spearheaded by Sanath Jaisuriya with his extra fast performance with the bat and a good supportive role with the bowl.

1999 world cup saw a desperate attempt from the Zulu, Lance Klusner of South Africa who almost took RSA in the finals almost single handedly. Effort in vain for the very unfortunate run-outs in the history of cricket.

2003 event saw the Indian master blaster at his best, hitting on target in almost all the matches but the Big final against Australia. In the process, he took the team to finals with the help of his team members, also scored the highest runs in the world cup.


2007, hain koi jawab ?

India's early exit: Advertisers Nightmare

India's early exit put advertisers in a tragic situation. As India's early exit will result in fall of viewers for other matches and viewers loss will upset advertisers as they have put lots of money for advertising during this World Cup 2007.

As CricketWeblog says:
In a One-day match, there are around 5,000 seconds of ad time. Currently, the rates are Rs 1.25-1.30 lakh for matches not featuring India which may reduced 1 lakh as India is no more part of the next stage. This may mean a drop of up to Rs 150 crore in advertising revenue for the broadcaster.

Advertisers are demanding for bonus spots and/or discounts as reported by Rediff. Also advertisers are reducing there budget for advertisement from the previous alloted amount like Videocon reduced it to Rs 10 crore from 20 crore.

On the contrary it may benefit channels showing TV serials as there TRP will get near to normal again so are there ad rates. Also hotels and restaurants which don't had TV sets for there customers and facing tough time in the evening slots.

Web World and Cricket Mania I

Cricket World Cup 2007 is currently taking place in the West Indies from March 13 to April 28, 2007 where total 51 matches will be played among 16 teams. As cricket fever is high on all over the World for a while so is in Internet also and everyone is hoping to cash on the world cup frenzy.

Here are the few good sites trying to cover this event from whichever sides they can and using all there angles.

CricketWorldCup is indya.com powered official website of the Cricket World Cup 2007. It has all the latest news, videos, trivia, historical statistics, voice of the world, games and many more things related with ICC's initiative for creating a fruitful cricket matches.

Rediff has a very good and useful feature of live score which shows ball by ball updates. Another interesting stuff from Rediff for this CWC7 is World Cup Prediction Game. Here you will get 10000 points initially and you can use this points to bet on different predictions which may or may not occur in this game. Start predicting here.
Also don't forget to check regularly updated slide shows of matches and related events by Rediff.
And for fans and children by heart they have masks of few of the very good cricketers in pdf format.

Criki is digg like news sharing website where you can find and share any cricket related news, pictures, audios and videos. Also you can vote and give comments on others news items.

CricTV is an online community site for cricket fans where you can share videos, pictures,

Finally here is a very good excel sheet called AceFixtures to keep track of all the matches and its results as suggested by our good friend Sidharth.

Keep check here as i will add more good websites related with cricket. Also aware me with other sites, blogs which you are using regularly to keep update your Cricket Quotient.

Super Eight's are Here

First round of Cricket World Cup 2007 is over with the final match of first round between Bangladesh and Bermuda from group B. Where Bangladesh defeated Bermuda with 7 wickets and secured a space for itself in second round.

Australia and South Africa are qualified from group A with Australia taking lead by 6 points after defeating South Africa in an interesting match which also features record of fastest century in Cricket World Cup by Mathew Hayden in 66 balls.

Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are qualified from group B where Sri Lanka is leading the group tally by 6 points.

New Zealand and England are qualified from group C where New Zealand is leading the group by winning all three matches and securing 6 points.

In group D West Indies secured its place in Super Eight rounds with 6 points while Ireland also qualified for the next stage from this group.

Super Eight round will start with West Indies's match against Australia on 27th Mar 2007 at Antigua & Barbuda and also end with West Indies's match against England on 21st April 2007 at Barbados. Also Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and West Indies are already having two points each in their account as they beated South Africa, Bangladesh, England and Ireland in their first round of matches respectively.

Super Eight round will be filled with clashes between six titans and two minnows who can upset the points calculation in this stage in a same way as it happenes in first round for India and Pakistan.

All the Best to All the Teams in Super Eight Stage.

Whats on Stake if ...

As all the analyst and big guns are from leading newspaper and news channel are already gave there thought about the loss, if India gets out in first round of World Cup 2007. They also mentioned that Advertising and Media industry will lose lots of money(in crores). Apart from this losses, the other effects it will bring us are:

• It may lead to loss of Mandira's charm. (Definitely we don't want that to happen)
• I read somewhere in newspaper that many Indian couple wont get a good sex life for a couple of week or till World Cup 2007 ends.
• India TV scenarios will be back on track of Saas-Bahu serials leading with K alphabet. (God Save us)
• News channel will have to find/make new breaking news everyday to serve people from India.
• And finally it will waste my share of Rs 250 for cable connection which i shared with six other friends in Pune.

To save us from all this losses only Indian Cricket team can do something today. My best wishes are with India to make a victory against Sri Lanka with a good form and new records and to show our presence in second round.

Jeeto India Jeeto !!!!

Defeat Sri Lanka and you are almost through ..

A win against Sri Lanka will almost take India through to the Super Eight

Sri Lanka has made things relatively easy for India by the huge 198-run win against Bangladesh. The calculations go this way:

India versus Sri Lanka
Scenario 1 Sri Lanka bat first, make 260 odd runs , and India win, over to spare.

Sri Lanka's net run rate reduces from 4.59 to 2.99, while India's will also drop! marginally to 1.72.

Scenario 2 India bat first, score 265, and win by a margin of 2 runs

Sri Lanka's net run rate will be 2.98, while India's will be 1.69.

At this stage the Sri Lanka is assured of their berth in Super 8 while the contest will be between India and Bangladesh. For Bagladesh to qualify they will have to get past India's net run rate ..

Bangladesh vs Bermuda
Scenario 1 Bangladesh score 300, and restrict Bermuda to 120. Win by margin of 180 runs

Despite this big victory, Bangladesh's net run rate will improve only to -0.08.

Scenario 2 Bermuda are bowled out for 120, and Bangladesh achieve the target in 15 overs

Here, Bangladesh's net run rate will only improve to -0.7.

In any of the happenings, Bangladesh's net run rate will be less than India's net run rate and India can sail through. Provided India win against Sri Lanka

Rollercoaster Ride on cards

India managed to beat Bermuda convincingly by 257 runs keeping hopes alive of going into the Super 8s.. the Indian team supporters have already been through a Rollercoaster Ride..

• First the warmup match victory against Netherlands which was better than the win against them in CWC 2003 so we were supposedly on the right track..
• Next up the match against the West Indies.. this is always tricky coz the moment u beat the host nation all the fans there will start booing u in all ur games.. we secured a win n got boos for sure.. coz we beat them by 9 wkts.. the win made the fans back home feel we are all set to dominate this time round like we almost did last time except for the Australia games..
• So here we were up against the Minnows Bangladesh.. in the first few overs it became crystal clear we had a fight on our hands the way they fielded throwing bodies all over the place n the disciplined bowling by their pacers n spinners also their batting showed they knew how to handle the situation something we could learn..coz we lost the match during our batting we being unsure whether to grind it out or to attack in style..
• The good thing that happened was that this win for Bangladesh makes Group B real interesting coz Sri Lanka n India can't take things lightly any more..speaking of whom when we go on to play them on this Friday no matter what happens between them n Bangladesh we have a chance why coz
• In World Cup games the scenario reads.. in the 5 games played so far Sri Lanka has won 3 n we the remaining 2..Arey woh log jyada jeeta na.. so whats good re? ya but we won last two times with big margins.. courtesy Ganguly (183), Dravid (145) n Singh (5-31) helping India to a 157 run victory in County Ground,Taunton, CWC 1999 and courtesy Tendulkar (97), Sehwag(66), Srinath (4-35) n Nehra (4-35) helping India to a 183 run victory in New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg, CWC 2003

A Record Breaking Day

The twelfth match of World Cup 2007 between India and Bermuda was full of records. Here is the list of few broken and/or equaled records:

• India's 413 for 5 against Bermuda broke the record for the highest total in a World Cup match. Before this Sri Lanka had this record from 1996 World Cup to till now with a score of 398 for 5 against Kenya.
• India manage to win by a large margin of 257 runs against Bermuda which broke the previous record of largest margin of Australia's 256-run win against Namibia in the 2003 World Cup.
• India also managed to equal South Africa's recent record for most sixes in an inning by knocking 18 sixes against Bermuda.
• Malachi Jones of Bermuda became the first bowler to take a wicket with his first delivery in a World Cup with Robin Uthappa's wicket.
• Virender Sehwag marked his first century in World Cup matches by scoring 114 off 87 balls against Bernuda. Also he created third fastest century in World Cup by knocking 100 runs in 81 balls.
• Bermuda with five ducks in its innings equaled the record of most ducks in the World Cup matches.
• Ganguly equaled the record of most sixes i.e. 25 sixes in World Cups of Ricky Ponting also playing ten less match then him.

Apart from this records hosts West Indies secured its place in second round of World Cup matches by beating Zimbabwe while Pakistan got the way for early exit.

If you are aware with any more records for the day which is not mentioned here then please add it here using Comment section.

Sehwag returns to form .. so does India..

A much awaited innings from Sehwag was finally seen in the India-Bermuda match as India went hard on to Bermuda. The humilaiation on Friday, saw the sub-continent tigers roar looud... although before the goats of cricket (.. whateva it be! )
Almost all the batsman scored before the team India could bundle up a record world cup total of 413. Sehwag (114), Saurav (89), Yuvraj (83), Sachin (57) were just too good for bowlers to handle. The Indian blowers lived upto the expectations and helped Inida win by a record 257 run margin.


Now, given a huge win, Indians still have a must win situation with Sri Lanka on coming friday.
I feel that Indian batting line up has just got it before the crucial Big Ind-Sri match and are well set to live upto our expectations..what sayz? !

Super Sixes ...

Speechless on this!

भारत की वेस्ट इन्डेस में जीत दर्ज

बांगलादेश से करारी मात खाने के बाद, भारत ने अखीर जीत का झंडा लहरा दिया।
४१४ दौड़ के विशाल लक्ष का सामना बेर्मुदा नहीं कर पायी और अपने घुटने टेक दीये।
जीयो इंडिया जीयों !

Bangladeshi, Irish minnows pull off BIG WC upsets ..

It was Bangladesh and Ireland, the teams which ruled the 5th day of the World Cup.

Right from the word go the Bangladeshi boys just dominated the big on paper Indian side. Be it blowing, batting, fielding.. they were better in every part of the game. Moreover the Indian boys just could just show glimpse of boys with winning attitude.Winning the toss the Indians chose to bat first. With almost every batsman struggling to play the Indians were all out for a formidable total of 191. The Sehwags, Dravids, Tendulkars did not look comfortable against both the seam and spin attack of Bangladesh. With Saurav Ganguly (66), Yuraj Singh (47) and a vital contribution of about 30 odd runs for the last wicket between Zaheer and Munaf saw India posting a a150+ score. Chasing a small total, the Bangladeshis looked all confident specially the 17 yr old guy Tamim Iqbal smashing Zaheer-Munaf-Agarkar trio all over the place. Tamim scored a quick fifty putting India in a very tough to recover position. Munaf's quick two wickets revived the hopes of 1oo million ppl back home in India. But Mishfiqur Rahim and Saqibul Hasan played out matured innings to see Bangladesh through.

With this result Bangladesh is all set for their remaining Group B ties - with Bermuda and Srilanka. On the other hand India have a do or die situation in their matches against Bermuda and Srilanka.

Another big upset for the day was Ireland's victory over Pakistan. Ireland continued their dream run in the world cup by crushing Pakistan, in their second WC match. The Irish attack bundled out the Pakistan batting line-up for 130 odd runs and made the stage for their batsmen to finish of things. Ireland managed to get the total with 50 spare balls and 3 wickets in hand. The result ensured a place in second round for the debutant Irish boys while the humiliation sent Pakistan packing with no hopes of qualifying in the next round.

Ground with the most number of World Cup matches??

The ground that has hosted the most number World Cup matches is in England which would come as no surprise considering England has hosted 4 World Cups in 1975, 1979, 1983 & lastly in 1999. Mostly our guess would be Lord’s, London, since our victory in 1983 over there is still fresh in our minds, actually Lord’s has hosted 10 games and 4 of them finals but the right answer turns out to be Headingley, Leeds where the most matches have been played which is 12.
Here is a list of the matches played at Headingley:
1975 (3) Aus won 73 runs vs Pak, Ind won 10 wkts vs EA, Aus won 4 wkts vs Eng
1979 (3) Pak won 8 wkts vs Can, NZ won 8 wkts vs Ind, Eng won 14 runs vs Pak
1983 (3) WI won 101 runs vs Aus, Pak won 11 runs vs SL, Eng won 9 wkts vs SL
1999 (3) Pak won 10 runs vs Aus, No result NZ vs Zim, Aus won 5 wkts vs SA

Group D: Today Pakistan at Bottom End

With a thrilling tie between Zimbabwe and debutant Ireland Pakistan's tally of points till now is ZERO in group D while West Indies is leading the points card with 2 points and Zimbabwe and Ireland are sharing 1 point each.

Ireland gave target of 222 which includes Jeremy Bray's unbeaten 115 while from Zimbabwe's side Matsikenyeri scored 73 of 76 deliveries but they stuck at 221. Bray declared Man of the Match.

Ireland skipper Johnston's quote after the match: "Who knows, we may even qualify for the next stage".

Anyway this tie will not be beneficial for Zimbabwe as they need to try hard in remaining matches if they want to play with Big Guns in Next round of matches.

Trivia: This is the third time that a World Cup match ended in a tie.

In an another match between Sri Lanka and Bermuda. Bermuda started very well by taking two big wickets of Sri Lanka with in 12 overs only but still Sri Lanka gave a huge target of 322 and simply knocked out all the batsman of Ireland for cost of 78 runs only. Sri Lanka won this match by 243 runs. Sri Lankan skipper Jayawardene declared Man of the Match for his 85 runs in 90 balls.

Today don't forget to watch interesting match between England and New Zealand. In another match South Africa will take on Holland.

World Cup and Cyber Crimes

I was just browsing through different websites for some cool stuff related with World Cup 2007 and got stuck on this news. As describe in this news, during big events like World Cup, phishers also get active as this is a good time to create a some phishing attacks to acquire personal and financial information.

Phishing — an attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Just to prevent yourself from phishing attack follow this guidelines:

• Do not open any mails or links from unknown sources.
• Use regularly updated anti-phishing tools, anti-virus, firewalls, spam filters and anti-spywares of reliable companies.
• Do not share your personal or financial information with any unknown sites just to watch final or to meet Dhoni.

Also if you have any more preventive information against phishing attack, please do share with us.

So enjoy this World Cup with some precautions.

Can You See Some Logic ?

Trivia - 1

Year 1981
1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes
4. Pope Died
2 years later India won the world Cup!!!

Year 2005
1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes
4. Pope Died
2 years later will India win the world Cup ?????


Trivia -2

1982 Football World Cup won by Italy
1983 Cricket World Cup won by India


2006 Football World Cup won by Italy
2007 Cricket World Cup: INDIA ???

Hosts Got a Good Start

After losing badly form India in there last warm up match West Indies got a very good start in first match of World Cup 2007 against Pakistan. West Indies secured precious 2 points by defeating Pakistan by 54 runs in a group D match. West Indies scored 241 for nine and then bowled Pakistan out for 187.

Dwayne Smith was declared man of the match. He scored 32 runs from 15 balls and also claimed three wickets which includes wickets of Mohammad Yousuf and Inzammam-ul-Haq. I am sure Caribbean girls must be impressed by his performance as we can see some dancing happy girls in stadium from our television set. ;-)

Other major contributions from hosts side include Marlon Samuels's 63, Sarwan's 49 and Lara's 37 while from Pakistani side Shoaib Malik scored 62 which includes two sixes but no help.

Today there is Australia Vs Scotland and Canada Vs Kenya and I will watch Canada's efforts to win over Kenya or vice-versa.

India - Pakistan

Its world cup time, and cricket fever has griped the entire nation. So, why should be remain behind. People say, Australia and England, share the greatest rivalry, but I have some doubts. I feel there is no rivalry on the field like India and Pakistan. Well, you want a proof for that, then just have a look at this video. You will have to agree with me!!!

Welcome one and all ..

Hey Friends,

Welcome one and all.

This brand new blog was started by us, just hours before the most awaited moment for 4 loong yrs on the planet C.

Just like you, we are excited about the very event ...with all memories of hundreds of matches to the missed catches , the spirit shown by gifted players to the fortunes ruined by devine showers... and have already begun to eat, sleep and drink cricket. Literally! Yeah literally - am writing straight from my office!!

Fans all over the place are heard making some predictions about the games and their outcomes ... with each adding a unique flavor! The conversations are so catchy, and with each dying to add their own point, we just tend to drown deep into the oceans of cricket. Out here involved into the deep discussions , we remember the endless discussions we had about any damn topic, in our own college, vjti

To carry the discussions further, we felt that we should create a blog specially dedicated to the World Cup 2007 (there are many but .. we would like to add our own flavor! as always! ;-) )

Here we intend to bring you all the action packed in a set of some words.. some eye-catching pics related to the cup, some videos, ..

All the suggestions are always welcome.
So here we go...


Cheers!

Raj and Deepesh