Italy, Nepal and Uganda will be arriving Bermuda to grab their position for Cricket World Cup 2015. They are among three of six teams that will be coming together for a chance to lift WCL Division 3 trophy. The top two sides of WCL Division 3 will be progressing as qualifier which will be held in New Zealand 2014.  Once this process done, the top two sides will be leaving for the New Zealand event.

The sportbook review will be following the news and will be updating about Cricket World Cup 2015. Meanwhile Italy captain Alessandro Bonora seems confident about getting qualified for the world cup. He said, “As a player you know you are going to come up against tough and consistent opposition and it will no doubt be a rarified and exciting week of cricket, I hope I can step up and hit form early in tournament. I hope we all can. It will be a tremendous honor for all of us to represent Italy and I will be incredibly proud if we can take it a step further to the 2014 ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier,”

On the other hand, Nepal captain Paras Khadka says his team is having a dream of getting qualified for the next world cup. He said, “We are really looking forward for the tournament and are preparing ourselves in the best possible manner with the available resources. Each and every player in the team has come through the domestic system and we have devoted lots of time and effort to climb the ICC rankings; certainly, playing in an ICC Cricket World Cup is our greatest and only dream.”

The Ian Bell run-out controversy will be one that will be remembered for time to come and the reason for it is simple. For long, the Indians have been expected to accept decisions on the grounds of sportsmanship even as the team at the other end, has made merry.

It had happened on the tour of Australia in the Sydney Test when one decision after another went against the Indian team and they could only helplessly look on.

There was a stumping decision that went against India, and there was a caught behind that also went against India before Ganguly was given out caught off one bounce.

So, I don’t understand what was MS Dhoni expecting to gain out of the decision to recall Ian Bell. If winning a sportsmanship award was the issue, he can easily do that in the IPL’s Fairplay award but with a number one ranking at stake, it was something that he should have kept in mind.

Besides, Bell was clearly out and it should have remained that way.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni impressive (91 not out) and Gautam Gambhir  smashing 97 innings  lead India to their second Cricket World Cuptriumph after thrashing Sri Lanka by six wickets to win the ICC World Cup 2011 at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai here on Saturday.

Man of the Match: Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Chasing 275 for a win, India made 277 for four wickets in 48.2 overs and brings the ICC World Cup World Trophy, 2011 for the Nation (India) – Today!s

Thanks to captain Dhoni, who made a remarkable scores that includes two sixes and eight fours in his 79-ball innings and raced to fifty in just 52 balls. Dhoni scored a 109 innings along with partner Gambhir in the fourth wickets, which is considered to be the highest run chase for India in World Cup finals, for the challenging 275-run target.

Though, Gambhir was bit disappointed as he was about to reach to score a hundred  in the World Cup final but meanwhile Lankan all-rounder Thisara Parera clean bowled him in the 42nd over.

However, Sachin Tendulkar also could stay long as he and Virendra Sehwag had to leave the ground after Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga dismissed them. Though, Sachin Tendulkar was moving smoothly as he hit two fours in his 14-ball in 18 innings before Malinga stopped him in the seventh over.

Initially, Sri Lanka’s captain Kumar Sangakkara won the toss and elected to bat against India.  However, Jayawardene played on a remarkable note as he score unbeaten 88-ball 103 as he hit 13 fours and raced to his hundred in just 84 balls

For India, Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh took two wickets each to stop Sri Lanka innings before Jayawardene started dominating the proceedings with Nuwan Kulasekara 32.

Finally, the cricket fever of world cup is over with its all sensations till 2015. Congrats to India.

Winner of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 – Team INDIA

Cricket World Cup 2011 Team India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, Munaf Patel.

So it is that time of the year when India take on Sri Lanka in the final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. The two teams have quite clearly been the best in the business and that should hold them in a good stead for this important game.

India will have the advantage in the sense that they are playing at home. Sri Lanka’s record in India has been anything but exciting. They have barely managed to win any game here and off the last 39 matches here, they have won only 11.

India will look to play S Sreesanth in place of Ashish Nehra who is injured whereas the batting of Angelo Mathews will be missed by the Lankans and he will be replaced by Thisara Perera.

Between the two teams it is going to be very difficult to choose the winner, but one thing is certain that the team batting first will have a huge advantage going into the game.

That said they will need to score at least 250 in the first innings.

India Won 2nd Semi Final of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 by 29 Runs against Pakistan on 30 March at Mohali

Man of the Match: Sachin Tendulkar

Score Board : 1st Innings IND: 260/9 (50) RR: 5.20 l 2^nd Innings PAK: 231/10 (49.5) RR: 4.63

Image Courtesy : Rediff.com

India has won by 29 runs in the second semi final of ICC World Cup 2011 against Pakistan today in the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali.

It’s a great victory for team India as they now entered into the grand finale of ICC World Cup 2011. The final match is going to be held on April 2 against Sri Lanka at the Wankhede Stadium situated at Mumbai in India.

Opting to bat first, India’s opening batsman Virendra Sehwag played brilliantly as he managed to deliver 38 runs from 32 balls which include 9 super boundaries. Man of the match – Sachin tendulkar again attached a feature on his cap with his half century covering 85 runs with 11 boundaries.

However, captian Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir gave brilliant innings that added good run score to the board. Though, this time Yuvraj Singh could get chance to show his skills as he was get clean bowled by Riaz in the first ball itself. Thanks to Raina, who scored 36 run to add a brilliant innings for India. Thus, India made a target of 261 runs for Pakisthan.

For India, Harbhajan Singh becomes the hero with his superb bowling as he took the two important wickets of Umar Akmal and Shahid Afridi and all indian bowlers picked up two wickets.

From the side of Pakistan, the notable performer was Misbahul Haq who scored a half century and Mohammad Hafeez made  43 runs innings as compared to other team member of Pakistani players in today’s match.

India reached the Third time in ICC Cricket World Cup’s before this India played Final in 1983 and 2003 and won in 1983 against West Indies and loose in 2003 against Australia.

Brief score:

India: 260 for nine in 50 overs (Sachin Tendulkar 85, Virender Sehwag 38, Wahab Riaz 5/46).

Pakistan: 231 all out in 49.5 overs (Misbah-ul-Haq 56; Mohammad Hafeez 43; Ashish Nehra 2/33, Munaf Patel 2/40, Harbhajan Singh 2/43, Yuvraj Singh 2/57).

It is interesting to note that the three teams who are left in the fray for a Cricket World Cup win are the three teams which lost in the final of the previous three Cricket World Cup tournaments. Sri Lanka went down in 2007, India in 2003 whereas Pakistan were ousted in 1999.

So, one of the runner-up will definitely go on to win the tournament this time.

More interestingly, all the three teams have also won the World Cup once, and are Asian teams. This is the first time that there will be two Asian teams which will contest the final of a World Cup, which is something good for them.

If India go through to the final, it will be a revenge game for them against Sri Lanka after having lost to them and crashed out in 2007. Secondly, it could also be a repeat of what happened in the 1996 Cricket World Cup, where India beat Pakistan in a high-voltage game before succumbing to Sri Lanka in a low-profile match.

New Zealand fought hard but in the end, were no match for the firepower of Sri Lanka. The batting was much better but in the end, it was the Sri Lankan bowling that made all the difference.

The problem that the Kiwis faced from the word go on a sticky Colombo track was that they could not score quickly enough. Not for a moment did it look like they would get to 260 an even towards the end of the innings when the acceleration could have come in, Sri Lanka bowled really well.

So, now it is two games in a row that Lankan have bowled much better than any other side in the competition. They will be facing India or Pakistan in the cricket world cup final and the sense that one gets is that they will prefer the batting of Pakistan – which has struggled in the competition so far.

However, for that, Pakistan will first need to beat India in the semi-final of the tournament and that could be the difficult part.