INDIA WINS CRICKET WORLD CUP History-defying India World champs

MUMBAI, April 2, (AFP): Gautam Gambhir made 97 and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni smashed an unbeaten 91 off 79 balls as India won the World Cup for the first time since 1983 with a six-wicket victory over Sri Lanka on Saturday.

India’s players celebrate their win in the Cricket World Cup final between India and Sri Lanka in Mumbai, India, April 2.

Sri Lanka, who won the toss and elected to bat in the day-night final, rode on Mahela Jayawardene’s 103 not out off 88 balls to pile up 274-6 in their 50 overs.India, cheered by a sell-out crowd of 33,000 at the Wankhede stadium, surpassed the challenging target with 10 balls to spare as Dhoni pounded Nuwan Kulasekara for the winning six.
India had slumped to 31-2 by the sixth over when sling-arm fast bowler Lasith Malinga dismissed Virender Sehwag (0) second ball and had star batsman Sachin Tendulkar (18) caught behind in his fourth over.
Gambhir, who was dropped on 30 and escaped a run-out chance on 49, turned the match around by adding 83 for the third wicket with Virat Kohli and 109 for the fourth with Dhoni.
Yuvraj Singh, who was named the man of the tournament, partnered his skipper till the end with 21 not out after Gambhir was bowled by Thisara Perera in the 42nd over when 52 more were still needed. Dhoni’s men emulated Kapil Dev’s compatriots who won the 1983 World Cup by beating the West Indies in the final at Lord’s in London.
The victory, watched by Indian President Pratibha Patil and Sri Lanka’s head of state Mahinda Rajapakse, was the first occassion a team had won the tournament on home soil.
It was only the third time in 10 World Cup finals that a side batting second had chased down the victory target.
The finale gave Tendulkar, the world’s most successful Test and one-day batsman, his first World Cup title in six appearances since 1992.
The defeat ended Sri Lankan star bowler Muttiah Muralitharan’s dream of being part of a second World Cup-winning team, having won the title under Arjuna Ranatunga in 1996 in Lahore.
Muralitharan, who turns 39 next month, went wicketless in eight overs to end his career with a record 800 Test and 534 one-day wickets.
Confusion reigned at the toss, which had to be performed twice after match referee Jeff Crowe did not hear Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara’s call when Dhoni threw up the coin.
Jayawardene shored up Sri Lanka’s innings before tailenders Nuwan Kulasekara (32 off 30 balls) and Thisara Perera (22 off nine) helped their team smash 63 runs in the last five overs of power-play.
India’s left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan dried up the flow of runs at the start and his two wickets made him the tournament’s leading bowler alongside Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi with 21 wickets each. Zaheer opened with three successive maidens and then struck with the first ball of his fourth over when Sehwag dived to his right in the slips to remove Upul Tharanga for two.
Fast bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth lifted the pressure by conceding 15 runs in his fifth over that included a no-ball and a warning for running in the danger area in his follow-through.
Sreesanth, who was preferred ahead of spinner Ravichandran Ashwin after Ashish Nehra was ruled out with a fractured finger, was thrashed for 52 runs in his eight overs.
Tillakaratne Dilshan, going into the final as the tournament’s leading scorer with 467 runs, made 33 when he was bowled by off-spinner Harbhajan Singh to make Sri Lanka 60-2 in the 17th over.
Jayawardene put on 62 for the third wicket with Sangakkara (48) and 57 for the fourth with Thilan Samaraweera (21).
Muralitharan bowed out of international cricket on the losing side as India won the World Cup final by six wickets on Saturday.
Murali, who will 39 later this month, had said before the tournament he would retire after this World Cup.
He went into the final with 800 wickets in 133 Tests and 534 in one-day internationals, both world records.
But in his 350th one-day international a half-fit Murali was rendered wicketless, his eight overs costing an economical 39 runs but without quite the same sharp turn that made him so difficult to face for so long.
Muralitharan’s longevity as a top-flight player could be seen from the fact he was the sole survivor in the current side from the Sri Lanka team that beat Australia to win the 1996 World Cup final in Lahore.
His career, although littered with individual records, was highly controversial on account of his unorthodox action.
Born with a bent elbow, he was called three-times for ‘throwing’ by Australian umpires in the mid 1990s.
He was also once called a ‘chucker’ by John Howard — a comment which would later help scupper the former Australian Prime Minister’s bid to become president of the International Cricket Council.
Repeated bio-mechanical tests indicated his action was legal.
But when the ICC amended their rules on bowling actions to allow for 15 degrees of flexibility in 2005 many critics felt it was a decision designed solely for Murali’s benefit and a move to appease cricket’s powerful ‘Asian bloc’.
Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara said his team were disappointed at missing out on a second World Cup title but proud to go down to a team that deserved victory more.
“I am very proud of everyone in the team, especially Mahela (Jayawardene) who rose up to the occasion and put up a great hundred,” he said, after India defeated his side by six wickets in the final at the Wankhede stadium.
Jayawardene scored an unbeaten 103 off just 88 balls to take Sri Lanka to 274-6 in the day-night clash watched by a capacity 30,000 crowd and millions more on television.
“When you look at this Indian team anything less than 350 is not enough. It has been a great tournament for us. The way India played they deserved the tag of favourites.
“Both Sri Lanka and India will be proud with the way they have played.”
Sangakkara, who made 48, said the only way his team could have stopped India from winning the crown was to take quick wickets but that did not happen.
“India were the better side. They were fantastic tonight. The only way for us to stop India was to get at least seven wickets. Gautam (Gambhir) was outstanding and (Mahendra Singh) Dhoni stepped up and performed.
“We are disappointed but the better side won.”

India vs Sri Lanka World Cup Scoreboard
MUMBAI, India, April 2, (AFP): Full scoreboard in the World Cup final between India and Sri Lanka at the Wankede Stadium on Saturday:
SRI LANKA innings
U. Tharanga c Sehwag b Khan 2
T. Dilshan b Harbhajan Singh 33
K. Sangakkara c Dhoni
b Yuvraj Singh 48
M. Jayawardene not out 103
T. Samaraweera lbw
b Yuvraj Singh 21
C. Kapugedera c Raina b Khan 1
N. Kulasekara run out 32
T. Perera not out 22
Extras (b 1 lb 3 w 6 nb 2) 12
Total (for six wickets; 50 overs) 274
Fall of wickets: 1-17 (Tharanga), 2-60 (Dilshan), 3-122 (Sangakkara), 4-179 (Samaraweera) 5-182 (Kapugedera), 6-248 (Kulasekara).
Bowling: Zaheer 10-3-60-2 (1w), Sreesanth 8-0-52-0 (2nb), Patel 9-0-41-0 (1w), Harbhajan 10-0-50-1 (1w), Yuvraj 10-0-49-2, Tendulkar 2-0-12-0 (3w), Kohli 1-0-6-0
INDIA innings
V. Sehwag lbw b Malinga 0
S. Tendulkar c Sangakkara
b Malinga 18
G. Gambhir b Perera 97
V. Kohli c & b Dilshan 35
MS Dhoni not out 91
Yuvraj Singh not out 21
Extras: (b-1, lb-6, w-8) 15
Total: (for four wickets, 48.2 overs) 277
Did not bat: S Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, M Patel, S Sreesanth.
Fall of wickets: 1-0 (Sehwag), 2-31 (Tendulkar), 3-114 (Kohli), 4-223 (Gambhir).
Bowling: Malinga 9-0-42-2 (2w); Kulasekara 8.2-0-64-0; Perera 9-0-55-1; Randiv 9-0-43-0; Dilshan 5-0-27-1 (1w); Muralitharan 8-0-39-0 (1w).
Result: India won by six wickets
Man-of-the-match: MS Dhoni (IND)
Man-of-the-tournament: Yuvraj Singh (IND)


World Cup Leaders
Most Runs
500 — Tillakaratne Dilshan, Sri Lanka (9 matches)
482 — Sachin Tendulkar, India (9)
465 — Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka (9)
422 — Jonathan Trott, England (7)
395 — Upul Tharanga, Sri Lanka (9)
393 — Gautam Gambhir, India (9)
380 — Virender Sehwag, India (8)
362 — Yuvraj Singh, India (9)
353 — AB de Villiers, South Africa (5)
334 — Andrew Strauss, England (7)
332 — Brad Haddin, Australia (7)
324 — Ross Taylor, New Zealand (8)
Most Wickets
21 — Shahid Afridi, Pakistan (8)
21 — Zaheer Khan, India (9)
18 — Tim Southee, New Zealand (8)
15 — Robin Peterson, South Africa (7)
15 — Muttiah Muralitharan, Sri Lanka (9)
15 — Yuvraj Singh, India (9)
14 — Imran Tahir, South Africa (5)
14 — Umar Gul, Pakistan (8)
13 — Kemar Roach, West Indies (6)
13 — Harvir Baidwan, Canada (6)
13 — Brett Lee, Australia (7)
13 — Lasith Malinga, Sri Lanka (7)
Centuries
(* denotes not out)
175 — Virender Sehwag, India vs Bangladesh
158 — Andrew Strauss, England vs India
144 — Tillakaratne Dilshan, Sri Lanka vs Zimbabwe
134 — AB de Villiers, S. Africa vs Netherlands
133 — Upul Tharanga, S. Lanka vs Zimbabwe
131* — Ross Taylor, NZ vs Pakistan
120 — Sachin Tendulkar, India vs England
119 — Ryan ten Doeschate, Netherlands vs England
113 — Kevin O’Brien, Ireland vs England
113 — Hashim Amla, S. Africa vs Netherlands
113 — Yuvraj Singh, India vs West Indies
111 — Sachin Tendulkar, India vs S. Africa
111 — Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka vs New Zealand
108* — Tillakaratne Dilshan, Sri Lanka vs England
107* — AB de Villiers, South Africa vs West Indies
107 — Devon Smith, West Indies vs Ireland
106 — Ryan ten Doeschate, Netherlands vs Ireland
104 — Ricky Ponting, Australia vs India
103* — M. Jayawardene, S. Lanka vs India
102* — Upul Tharanga, S. Lanka vs England
101 — Brendon McCullum, N. Z vs Canada
101 — Paul Stirling, Ireland vs Netherlands
100* — Virat Kohli, India vs Bangladesh
100 — Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka vs Canada. (AP)