one-day cricket. It was the first time that players wore coloured sport shirts. Moreover the sightscreens and white cricket balls were introduced for the first time. This was South Africa`s first World Cup after their re-introduction into international cricket. A total of 9 teams took part in the tournament with all sides having to play each other. The teams were not divided into groups for the first time.
Mohammed Azharuddin led India. Kapil Dev was also part of the squad along with Sachin Tendulkar, who has since gone on to become one of the greatest ever. India performed poorly and the entire tournament was quite a disastrous one for the Indian team. The Indian team lost their opening match against England by nine runs; the second match against Sri Lanka was cancelled out on account of rain. Although the Indian team portrayed a brilliant performance, particularly by Mohammed Azharuddin who scored 93 runs out of 103 balls, yet for the second consecutive World Cup, India lost to Australia by one run in the next match. They managed a win against old rivals Pakistan and also Zimbabwe, where India won by a whopping 55 runs and Sachin Tendulkar excelled in his performance by scoring 81 runs out of 77 balls, which included 1 six and 8 fours. But the Indian team lost to West Indies by 5 wickets, which meant there was a huge probability of being knocked out of the tournament. Losses to New Zealand and South Africa smashed India`s hopes as they ended the World Cup with 5 losses, 1 draw and only 2 wins in 8 matches. Their poor performance put them at the 7th position in the final standings with only minnows Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe below them.
Captain Mohammed Azharuddin was India`s best batsman of the tournament with 332 runs in 7 matches, but failed to score a single century. Sachin Tendulkar, playing in his first World Cup, gave a glimpse of his talent with 3 fifties and scored a total of 283. Kapil Dev also played well with the highest batting strike rate of 124.81. But in the end, they failed to perform as a team. The Indian cricket team included the following players: Mohammed Azharuddin (Captain), Ravi Shastri, Kris Srikkanth, Kapil Dev, Sanjay Manjrekar, Sachin Tendulkar, Ajay Jadeja, Vinod Kambli, Kiran More, Manoj Prabhakar, Javagal Srinath, Venkatapathy Raju, Subroto Banerjee and Praveen Amre.
