CRICKET WORLD CUP

Yesterday, in front of an ecstatic home crowd in Mumbai, India beat Sri Lanka to win the 2011 cricket World Cup. Captain Mahendra Dhoni hit a brilliant 91 not out in chasing down a difficult target of 275 with 10 balls to spare; and fittingly won the game with a six high into the stands.

This year's tournament was split between the South Asian nations, with India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh all hosting matches (Pakistan was scheduled to do so as well, but pulled out because of security reasons). Home support obviously helped, since the four semi-finalists were India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. England, South Africa, and winners of the past three events Australia, all flattered at various times, but came up short when the matches entered the knock-out phase.

It was a good tournament. England and India played a tie. Minnows Ireland beat England after an amazing hundred by Kevin O'Brien. And the semi-final between India and Pakistan in Mohali was both a great match and a reminder of how sport can transcend even the most difficult political problems.  

The final was set up to provide a number of fairytale endings. India's great batsman Sachin Tendulkar had the possibility of scoring his 100th international century (he has 51 in five-day tests and 48 in the one-day version of the game played in the World Cup) in his home city, after he had come close in the semi-final with 85. And Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan, the spinner who is the leading international wicket-taker of all time, was playing his last match before retiring. Yet both had poor matches, Tendulkar going for a meagre 18 after looking in great form, and Muralitharan not taking a wicket in his eight overs. Instead it was left to others to shine. Sri Lanka's former captain Mahela Jayawardene hit a brilliant century, and thereby became the only centurion in a World Cup final to end up on the losing side; while Gautam Gambhir rescued India from a poor start with 97 before Dhoni took over in the later stages.

The only disappointment was the fact that Danes don't like cricket. Most of the time I had to watch on myp2p; though luckily I could watch the final on Norwegian TV.

Walter Blotscher