Tag T20 World Cup 2010

Winning a world cup, of any sport, is a revolution..

England started cricket, played first official test match centuries ago in year 1877 but registered their first revolution only on 16 May 2010, claiming T20 world cup in West Indies. rather emphatically.

Finalists in 1975, 79 and 92, England beat arch rivals Australia neck and crop in the final today but before we get there, here's the story from the begining :-

Unlucky versus Windies
191 for 7 when invited in to bat on a rainy day was a match winning batting effort from boys in blue but home team Windies got lucky with Duckworth Lewis (D/L). a method that tends to favour teams with batting resources, West Indies were given a revised target of 60 from 6 overs which they reached 1 ball in hand. taking a silent revenge of 1 run rain interrupted win England had registered at the same venue a year ago, again thanks to D/L!

Lucky versus Irish
Disappointment of yesterday still haunted England and it continued through their batting innings, limited to only 120, against an inspired Irish attack. Minnows Ireland should have eliminated senior rival neighbours from here on but rain played the spoilsport yet again. match abandoned and England progressed to super 8s round for better net runrate.

Cruising past Pakistan
Championship now had shifted from Guyana to Barbados and with that, English luck changed. Michael Yardy and Stuart Broad restricted defending champions Pakistan to 147 after a good begining and then Kevin Pietersen cracked 70 unbeaten to touch victory banks with 9 balls to spare.

Shutting down South Africa
Craig Kieswetter had made his debut just 3 games ago but his confidence was evident. With in-form Kevin Pietersen, new English wicket keeper made century partnership to push his team's total to 168 batting first despite lower order collapse. Ryan Sidebottom and Graeme Swann destroyed Proteas chase, sealing game by 39 runs, and with that the semifinal spot as well.

No non-sense against New Zealand
Winning is a habbit and Paul Collingwood & co. were determined to stick with it in this New Zealand encounter which they could afford to lose. Same pace trio of Sidebottom, Tim Bresnan & Broad along with spin twin of Yardy and Swann did the trick, cut desperate Kiwis short to 149 and then Eoin Morgan & Luke Wright finished the game off the last ball.

Superb in semifinal vs Sri Lanka
All three departments were well oiled for England in this tournament and yet again, pacers, spinners and fielders did a marvelous job to limit Sri Lanka to 128 who elected to bat. St Lucia pitch and outfield was fast slowing down but Kevin Pietersen played another match winning innings after solid opening stand to take England into their first world cup final in almost 2 decades.

England win T20 world cup 2010
beating Australia neck & crop. tactically electing to field first on a fresh Barbados pitch, Ryan Sidebottom ate up top 2 to go with a runout by Michael Lumb and Swann dismissing Michael Clarke caught by opposite number Collingwood, UK boys won the initiative early on and held onto it untill the end, chasing down 148 runs with 3 overs unbowled, thanks to 63 solid runs by Kieswetter and 47 by new dad Pietersen.

Quotes

England captain Paul Collingwood ~ "We’ve won a World Cup, and you can never take that away from us".

Australia captain Michael Clarke ~ “You’ve got to give credit to England - they played some wonderful cricket and outplayed us. They’ve had a wonderful tournament and we got beaten by the better team today".

Man of the final = Craig Kieswetter. Match of the world cup = Kevin Pietersen.