World Cup 2011 Champions - Team India :)

Dear Friends,

I have been away for a while now.  But I am back with some BIG news!!  The ICC World Cup was this year (it comes every 4 years) and INDIA won the World Cup 2011 making all of us Indians proud :D :D.  I am booming with joy and pride.  To give you little more details...here are some facts.

The ICC World Cup was running from Feb. 19 - April 2nd, 2011.  It comprises of 14 Countries (cricket teams) and these 14 teams are divided in 2 groups.  In the group stages, each team plays with every other team from their group.  After the group stages are over, the top 4 teams from each group progresses towards the quarter-finals stage.  The winner of each quater-final stage progresses towards semi-final and the winner of semi-finals progresses to the final of the World Cup.

I was a huge cricket fan back in India but once we moved to US I stopped following it.  I had watched one game here and there during the world cup of 2003.  But World Cup 2011 was the first world cup I followed closely from start to end!!  I have been keeping a close eye on all of India's games and watching all the knockout games (quarter/semi/final) completely even though I had to wake up at 3 AM to watch it!  And I was also keeping up with the scores of almost all the other teams' games.

Australia has been 3 times world champions since 1999 and I had a feeling that this was the year they needed to be defeated because it was like they didn't have any competition.  They were winning year after year after year.  And for the first time, in the quarter-final stage, India beat Australia and Australia was out of the World cup after 11 years of domination!!  This victory let India to progress to the Semi-Final and the biggest game of all because the Semi-final was against Pakistan!!  In all these years, India has never been beaten by Pakistan in the World Cup but this year the tension was high, the expectations were high, and this was bigger than the World Cup Final itself.  Pakistan looked in good form this World Cup and looked determined too but there was no doubt that India was going to win and they did!  India beat Pakistan in Semi-final on March 30th, 2011 and progressed to the Final game against Sri-Lanka.  The final of the world cup was help on April 2nd, 2011 and Team India put their heart and soul in winning this game.

India beat Sri Lanka in the final and became the new World Cup Champions!!  I am so proud of the team and each team member to bring us to this victory.  It was a historic day for each and every Indian as the Indian Cricket Team won the World Cup after 28 years (first won in 1983). I feel so happy and proud to be part of this enormous experience!!! I have had the smile on my face since the World Cup Win and I will never forget this day!! Thank you Team India for this victory and especially to Dhoni for your true sportsmanship and leadership!!!  Not to bore you guys, but I want to say something for each of the team members.

Sachin Tendulkar: He is considered the GOD of Cricket and I want to leave it at that.  He is such a grounded person and he deserved this World Cup more than anyone because he has given this country so much during his entire career in Cricket.  He has made the most runs, more than any cricketer and winning a World Cup was the only thing missing in his kitty...and this year he won it!!  The entire team came together to win this for him, for the country.  Even at the age of 38, he has managed to stay fit, bat superbly, and run and dive to save the boundaries while fielding.  He is my cricket superstar. 

Mahendra Singh Dhoni:  I didn't really know this guy much but came to know him closely in this world cup.  He is one cool headed captain who led this team to the victory.  I was not very fond of his batting since he didn't do so well in any of the games batting wise, but didn't know he was saving all his energy for the Final of the world cup to score 91 (not out)!!  I want to thank him for all his effort and true sportsmanship to be the way he is, to make the decisions he did.  Congratulations to him and to the entire team.  Also I found out that under his captaincy, Team India has rose to fame, became #1 in test matches and ODI, not to mention, he is the captain who got us the World Cup after 28 years!!  Keep it up!

Gautam Gambhir: This guy is completely unpredictable.  For once, he takes runs blindly and runs like a cheetah but at the same time he risks being run out :-|, but he proved to everyone that he is in this business for real during the final of the World Cup.  Who can forget his magnificent innings during the final where he played calmly under so much pressure and scored 97 which brought India closer to the victory?  I really wish he had gotten his century but fate had it otherwise.  But who cares about the century!!  It's the effort that counts, not the runs (not in this final), because God knows what would have happened to the team without him!  Great work Gautam, you made us proud!!

Yuvraj Singh:  This is the Man of the tournament and maximum time Man of the Match!  He is someone who brought India to the knockout stages when India had lost some of its earlier batsman and all the pressure was on him.  He fought back against Ireland, Netherlands, West Indies, and Australia.  He is an all-rounder who stroke hard in batting field as well as bowling.  With his effort, India progressed to the knockout stages, so that's why his contribution is huge in this World Cup.

Virender Sehwag: The first game of World Cup which was between India and Bangladesh, this man put up a fighting score of 175 which gave a boost to the team and added to the total of 370.  This gave a great start to the world cup.  After that game, he hasn’t had much luck on batting field since he got out in the earlier overs but still whenever he batted he gave a good start to the Indian team to get the score high up in the first 5 to 10 overs.

Zaheer Khan: He is officially my favorite bowler in Indian cricket team, who was always consistent in all the games and someone the team can rely on.  If the team needed wickets, he was the one to handle the ball to do the job.  He always delivered and never disappointed.  During the world cup, he has taken the maximum wickets of 21, along with Shahid Afridi (captain of Pakistan) to top the charts.

Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina: These two young guns were all rounders for this team.  Virat Kohli is the youngest player in the team who can bat, bowl, and field outstandingly.  On the other side, Suresh Raina is great to handle the batting even under much pressure and deliver a great partnership with the other batsman and stay on his toes while fielding.  These two players along with Yuvraj Singh have delivered some great fielding which has saved many runs against different teams.

Apart from these players, other team players have done their parts when needed the most such as Harbhajan Singh, Ashish Nehra, Ravichandran Ashwin, Munaf Patel, Piyush Chawla, Yusuf Pathan, and Sreesanth, took the wickets when needed, saved runs (and also gave away lots of runs at a time, but the world cup made up for it), and batted runs when needed the most.

So that’s my taken on the World Cup 2011 and the World Cup Champions – Team India.  Sorry for a really long entry but this was a huge victory for India and it’s hard to cover the World Cup highlights in just one or two paragraphs.  I can not tell you how happy and proud it made me when the team India won the World Cup 2011 and the joy it brought to see them so happy and celebrating after the game.

See ya until the next post!!