
World cup cricket since its inception in the year 1975 includes India as one of its participant teams .As the biggest tournament of One-Day international format, the World Cup Cricket was first held in the year 1975 in England. Since then, India has participated in all the editions of the tournament and has also become the winner in two occasions, in 1983 and in 2011. India in World Cup Cricket has always shown great performances and was part of some of the greatest matches in World Cup history.
In the inaugural edition of the World Cup Cricket in 1975, India was placed along with the teams like England, New Zealand and East Africa in a group. India played its first match in World Cup against England and miserably lost the match by a huge margin of 202 runs. In the next match, it comfortably defeated the East Africa side by a huge margin of 10 wickets. However, as it failed to beat New Zealand in its last group match, it could not enter into the next round of the tournament. That was the end of India`s campaign in the
World Cup Cricket, 1975.
In the second edition of
World Cup Cricket, 1979 that was also held in England, India put on a worse performance. India was placed in a group, along with the defending champions, West Indies, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. India once again started the tournament in a disastrous manner, as it lost its first match against West Indies by a huge margin of 9 wickets. India once again lost to the New Zealand team in the second match by a huge margin of 8 wickets. India then faced the biggest humiliation in its last group match against Sri Lanka, the then minnows of World Cricket. It failed to achieve an easy target of 238 runs set by Sri Lanka and eventually lost the match. The World Cup Cricket, 1979 is considered as the worst World Cup for India.
However, the scenario changed entirely in the
World Cup Cricket, 1983 and India played great Cricket in that tournament. India started the tournament in a group comprising the other teams like Zimbabwe, West Indies and Australia. India stunned everyone by beating the formidable West Indies team by 34 runs in its opening match and then beat the weaker team Zimbabwe by 5 wickets in the second match. India won 4 of its group matches in the tournament, while losing two. In the knock-out level, India beat the England team in the Semi-Final by a margin of 6 wickets and went on to meet West Indies in the Final. The Final of World Cup Cricket, 1983 is considered as a classic One-Day match. After being bowled out for a mere 183 runs, India successfully restricted the West Indies team to only 140 and thus clinched the coveted championship title in the World Cup Cricket, 1983 under the captaincy of
Kapil Dev.
The journey of India in World Cup Cricket did never see such a huge success in the following editions and failed to cross the Semi-Finals in most of the occasions
India successfully reached the Final of the World Cup Cricket, 2003 under the able leadership of
Saurav Ganguly. In that edition of the World Cup Cricket, Indian team showed some brilliant performances and eventually met the defending champions, Australia in the Final. However, the
Indian cricket players could not control their nerves in the Final and lost the match by a huge margin of 125 runs.
The next edition that is the World Cup Cricket, 2007 saw another highly disappointing performance from the Indian Cricket team. This tournament is also considered as one of the worst ones for India in World Cup Cricket, as the team could not reach even the second round of the tournament.
The 2011 world Cup was the 10th Cricket world cup. The whole tournament was played in three countries named India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. India played very well all through the tournament and won the trophy once again. Under the captaincy of
Mahendra Singh Dhoni India gave a great performance and dragged the Cup defeating Sri Lanka in the final match. The final match was held on 2nd April, 2011. India is the first nation to win the World Cup Cricket in the home soil. India`s
Yuvraj Singh was declared the man of the tournament. Through this journey India proved to be the toughest competitor of the tournament giving always its contenders a hard challenge.
(Last Updated on : 27/02/2012)