Some Articles, trivia, the theme song of the World Cup, and news you never knew about. These articles and content are courtesy Outlook-India who have some more great content on the wrld cup. Kapil's Devilry Kapil Dev's Innings of 175 not out against Zimbawe which was ont of the most exploive innings ever played by an Indian, is not on tape. Nobody has a video recording of this historic match. BBC which was supposed to have covered this match went for a cucoo... they were on strike !!!! demanding higher pay...... In hindsight indians and the people of the cricketing world at lrge have missed a great blade whacking from a legendary cricketer -- Kapil "Paaji" Dev FACT FILE The only father-son pair to have played in the World Cup are John Pringle for East Africa and Derek Pringle for England. The first team to ever beat the West Indies in a World Cup match was India—in the ’83 final The only two batsmen who have scored three centuries in the World Cup: Vivian Richards of the West Indies and Pakistan’s Rameez Raja Taking a break from off-breaks, Saqlain Mushtaq, India’s scourge, paid a visit to the Ajmer Sharif shrine in Rajasthan. Let Off the Hook Pay Peanuts, Get... The Official Theme Song of the Cricket
World Cup: Gujaratan Ankles, English Backsides If table tennis can be a rage, why not table cricket? Tickets aren’t quite sold out for the World Cup Table Cricket matches now underway, but the game is certainly here. Thirty-five teams are playing in the competition organised by the English Cricket Board at Headingly, Old Trafford, Edgbaston and the like. The final will, obviously, be at Lord’s on May 4. Table cricket actually uses a table tennis table as a cricket field. A launcher bowls plastic balls and the batsman handles them with a wooden bat. Side controls send fielders sliding about the field. The teams have six players each, with two seventh men. Each team begins with a score, which decreases every time you lose a wicket. But the batsmen also score—in twos, fours, and if they dare, sixes. Cricket and fashion have come together for the World Cup. British models Caprice and Tim Vincent have been modelling cricket couture in the build-up to the tournament, with England captain Alec Stewart catwalking to promote the new look. It’s easy to see why England picked those two. A columnist’s theory to explain England’s bad form: English players have the world’s biggest backsides. Hinders quick movement, that sort of thing. Those changes cannot be made at this stage, but with national flags designed on to colourful costumes, they’ll certainly look good parading themselves out there. It might not look very nice, though, if they’re made to trudge out after an early exit. —By SANJAY SURI Swing Thing All too Brief The Amarnath Fit Weathering TV A greeting card sent by children from 370 schools to the indian team: 20 ft wide and 900 ft long I stayed up to watch India win the ’83 World Cup and might be persuaded to do so again if India reaches the finals. But I think Australia will emerge the winners. It’s very hard to think of favourite players other than Tendulkar but as I was born in Bengal, perhaps Ganguly is a choice. - MARK TULLY The Natural Host England is cricket country. They play it in the park, in glades, in gentle summery weather, with a tea tent on the boundary line, elderly men resting their chins on their walking sticks, occasionally declaring, "Well played, sir!" It is my contention that the only Indian who could mouth this phrase and get away with it was Vijay Merchant. England has all the classic cricket sounds. The ball on the bat, the umpire calling ‘over’, the ripple of quiet applause as a batsman reaches a milestone. Wherever cricket is played in there, be it a World Cup venue or a county ground, there’s a sense of decorum about it. Even when it rains, this decorum prevails. The players quietly troop back, the spectators remain seated in the open stands, their ever-present umbrellas open. And in the face of such non-violent opposition, more often than not the rain gently retreats. I recall a wet and soggy Sunday afternoon not many years ago, returning on the underground to central London from the northern suburbs. It had been raining all day, and not a ball had been bowled at Lord’s, where England was playing a Test match. At St John’s Wood, an Englishman got on. He was dressed for cricket: shirtsleeves, soft hat, binoculars swinging from a shoulder. The poor man was dripping like a wet duck. It was nearing 4; he must have sat through the whole wet day waiting for the weather to clear. That’s a cricket audience, not 85,000 hollering at Eden Gardens. India is no place for a World Cup, I regret to say. It is too vast, our airlines unpunctual and the programme committee does not help any, sending a team careening from north to south, and to north again the next day. And on the last occasion, when India and Pakistan jointly hosted the cup, it only doubled the logistic and other problems. The same may be said about Australia and New Zealand, a tournament stretching across the Australian Sea. England is best. It is compact. With its experience of country and league cricket, it is used to the movement of teams from ground to ground, and it takes the team bus an evening’s journey to move to a new venue. Even crowd-wise, it should be satisfactory. England, with its polyglot society, should have enough people in the various stadia belonging to the countries of the visiting teams. It is also the home of cricket, and every alternate cricket World Cup should be played at home, I firmly believe. Pavilion End So the World Cup now has a song; it’s another matter
that it has not a word about cricket in it. Unless "grey clouds inside your
head" is about something overhead instead. Subtle minds tell of its spirit of
cricket. What was that? "As man is tough, woman is strong", "Men from
Venus, Women from Mars", sounds like the theme song at a convention of transvestites.
And th Mike Stewart, who wrote the song and posed with the cricketing Stewart (and a model or two) for pictures at its launch last week let slip why. The song wasn’t written for the World Cup at all. He pulled it out of a drawer and "adapted" it to the World Cup. Guess how! Odds and Evens The odds, as they stand at the moment: South Africa 7-2; Australia 11-4; England 11-2; India 6-1; Pakistan 7-1; Sri Lanka 8-1; West Indies 10-1; New Zealand 16-1; Zimbawe 50-1; Kenya 600-1; Bangladesh 660-1; Scotland 1,200-1
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at "the meek and the gentle will inherit the
stars...." Talking of Brian Lara here? Or the gentle pace of Curtly Ambrose? Maybe it
will take the idea of cricket "all over the world" as it’s called.
Doesn’t sound like it will. If the song does catch on, the catch is, where was the
cricket?