India At The World Cup

India At Cricket World Cup:

The first world cup was played in 1975 in England. Indian team was eliminated in the first round itself. India lost to England in their opening match by 202 runs. This match is mostly remembered for slowest innings of 36 runs in 174 balls by Sunil Gavaskar. India won their match against East Africa but lost to New Zealand and were eliminated from the competition. Indian squad included :-

* Abid Ali
* Mohinder Amarnath
* Bishan Singh Bedi
* Farokh Engineer (wicketkeeper)
* Anshuman Gaekwad
* Sunil Gavaskar
* Karsan Ghavri
* Madan Lal
* Brijesh Patel
* Eknath Solkar
* Srinivasan Venkataraghavan (captain)
* Gundappa Viswanath

The second world cup also took place in England in the year 1979. This edition was also not good for India. India fared really badly loosing all their 3 games to West India, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. This was second Round 1 elimination for India. Srinivas Venkataraghvan lead the side again. The squad comprised of players.

* Mohinder Amarnath
* Bishan Singh Bedi
* Kapil Dev
* Anshuman Gaekwad
* Sunil Gavaskar
* Karsan Ghavri
* Surinder Khanna (wicketkeeper)
* Brijesh Patel
* Bharath Reddy
* Yashpal Sharma
* Dilip Vengsarkar
* Srinivasan Venkataraghavan (captain)
* Gundappa Viswanath

India started their campaign in 1983 world cup as dark horse. The world cup was staged in England. The Indian team was lead by Kapil Dev. India opened their campaign by shocking victory against mighty West Indies side. India won against Zimbabwe but lost to Australia. In the second round they lost to West Indies. In the next match against Zimbabwe Kapil Dev scored unbeaten 175 to thrash Zimbabwe.

Indian team beat Australia in the next match to book their berth in semi finals. India defeated host England to reach finals. India played West Indian side in finals. Batting first India were bowled out for 183 runs. The West Indian were cruising before collapsing to 76 for 6. The side was bowled out for 140 and India became the world champions against all odds. The victory changed the Indian Cricket forever and lot of credit goes to Indian Captain Kapil Dev. The 1983 squad included :-

* Mohinder Amarnath
* Kirti Azad
* Roger Binny
* Kapil Dev (captain)
* Sunil Gavaskar
* Syed Kirmani (wicketkeeper)
* Madan Lal
* Sandeep Patil
* Balwinder Sandhu
* Yashpal Sharma
* Ravi Shastri
* Kris Srikkanth
* Sunil Valson
* Dilip Vengsarkar

India hosted the 1987 edition of world cup. India were defending their title. India topped in the league stage winning all their games except one. India lost to England in Semis of the tournament and were out of the completion. The star performers for this edition were Navjot Sidhu, Mohd Azharuddin, Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri. The Indian team comprised of :-

* Mohammed Azharuddin
* Roger Binny
* Kapil Dev (captain)
* Sunil Gavaskar
* Kiran More (wicketkeeper)
* Chandrakant Pandit
* Manoj Prabhakar
* Chetan Sharma
* Ravi Shastri
* Maninder Singh
* Navjot Singh Sidhu
* Laxman Sivaramakrishnan
* Kris Srikkanth
* Dilip Vengsarkar

The 1992 edition of the world cup was hosted by Australia and New Zealand. The concept of coloured clothes and artificial light was introduced. India started the campaign badly loosing to England by 9 runs. They lost to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and West Indies. They won the match against Pakistan and Zimbabwe but  failed to qualify for knock out stage. The Indian team included :-

* Praveen Amre
* Mohammed Azharuddin (captain)
* Subroto Banerjee
* Kapil Dev
* Ajay Jadeja
* Vinod Kambli
* Sanjay Manjrekar
* Kiran More (wicketkeeper)
* Manoj Prabhakar
* Venkatapathy Raju
* Ravi Shastri
* Kris Srikkanth
* Javagal Srinath
* Sachin Tendulkar

The 1996 edition of world cup was hosted by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The change in format was introduced and India was placed in Group A with Australia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe. They lost their match to Australia and Sri Lanka but managed to qualify for the Quarter Finals. India defeated the arch rivals Pakistan in the Quarter Finals and made their way for semi finals. India lost to Sri Lanka in the semis after the game was called off due to crowd interruption. The Indian squad included :-

* Salil Ankola
* Mohammed Azharuddin (captain)
* Ajay Jadeja
* Vinod Kambli
* Aashish Kapoor
* Anil Kumble
* Sanjay Manjrekar
* Nayan Mongia (wicketkeeper)
* Manoj Prabhakar
* Venkatesh Prasad
* Venkatapathy Raju
* Navjot Singh Sidhu
* Javagal Srinath
* Sachin Tendulkar

The world cup returned to England in the year 1999. Indian side
was again lead by Azharuddin. Despite having top ranked players like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid Indian team couldn’t do well in this edition. They lost to South Africa in the league stage but beat Sri Lanka by record to march into Super Six stage. They won the match against arch rivals Pakistan again but were eliminated from the world cup. The team for this edition was as follows :-

* Ajit Agarkar
* Mohammed Azharuddin (captain)
* Nikhil Chopra
* Rahul Dravid
* Sourav Ganguly
* Ajay Jadeja
* Amay Khurasiya
* Anil Kumble
* Debashish Mohanty
* Nayan Mongia (wicketkeeper)
* Venkatesh Prasad
* Sadagoppan Ramesh
* Robin Singh
* Javagal Srinath
* Sachin Tendulkar

The 2003 world cup was hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. India started their campaign against minnows Holland and won that match. In the next match they lost to Australia very badly. The repercussion of the loss was felt by families of some players as well.

The Indian team under Sourav Ganguly bounced back to record 8 successive wins in the tournament to reach finals. They beat Pakistan as well. In the finals they faced the defending champions Australia again. The Indian team bowed to the tremendous pressure of the world cup finals and lost the game. But this world cup changed the attitude in Indian team and they looked formidable side thereafter. The team was  :-

* Ajit Agarkar
* Sanjay Bangar
* Rahul Dravid (wicketkeeper)
* Sourav Ganguly (captain)
* Mohammad Kaif
* Zaheer Khan
* Anil Kumble
* Dinesh Mongia
* Ashish Nehra
* Parthiv Patel (reserve wicketkeeper)
* Virender Sehwag
* Harbhajan Singh
* Yuvraj Singh
* Javagal Srinath
* Sachin Tendulkar

The 2007 world cup took place in West Indies for the first time. India went on to the tournament as one of the favourites. But they lost to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the league stage and were eliminated in the first round itself. The team was lead by Rahul Dravid. The team was :-

* Sourav Ganguly
* Robin Uthappa
* Virender Sehwag
* Rahul Dravid (captain)
* Sachin Tendulkar
* Yuvraj Singh
* Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wicketkeeper)
* Ajit Agarkar
* Harbhajan Singh
* Munaf Patel
* Zaheer Khan
* Irfan Pathan
* Anil Kumble
* Dinesh Karthik (reserve wicketkeeper)
* Shanthakumaran Sreesanth