Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
Lo and Behold..! And exciting World Cup series comes to an end with the final match being played tomorrow at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai between co-hosts India and Sri Lanka. It will definitely be a cake on the icing to the series. The path to finals has not been a cake walk for either of the teams but included a lot of sweat and grit.
Preparations for the ICC Cricket World Cup final match are at full swing. Almost 5000 personnel of the Maharashtra police and officers of specialized security agencies are deployed for the match at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium. A local holiday has been declared in Mumbai and adjoining suburbs.
Simon Taufel from Australia and Aleem Dar from Pakistan will be the on-field umpires. Jeff Crowe has been selected as the match referee while England’s Ian Gould and Australia’s Steve Davis have been named third and fourth umpires respectively. According to Sudhir Naik, curator of the stadium, the team batting first will have the advantage. He also mentions that a score of 270-280 would be a very likely event. So, the toss winner should opt for batting first.
Coming to the batting statistics; the Sri Lankan team has 3 players in the five highest scorers which includes Tilakaratne Dilshan ranked no. 1, Kumar Sangakkara in the 4th position and Upul Tharanga following closely at 5th position. The Indian team has Sachin Tendulkar in the second position, Virender Sehwag at sixth position and Yuvraj Singh at eight position. In highest partnerships made by runs three Sri Lankan pairs: Upul Tharanga and Tilakaratne Dilshan (282 and 231*) and Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene (179) are in the top 10 slot while India has only one i.e. Virender Sehwag and Virat Kohli(203) among top 10.
If we compare the bowling statistics India have Zaheer Khan with 19 wickets in his kitty and is placed in the second rank where as Sri Lanka’s Mutthiah Muralithatran is in the fifth place by capturing 15 wickets. Lasith Malinga’s bowling figures Vs Kenya: 7.4 overs , 38 runs and 6 wickets is considered as second best bowling figures in the tournament and even Tilakaratne Dilshan with figures: 3 overs , 4 runs and 4 wickets managed to nab the tenth position. Lasith Malinga remains one of the two players to have made a hat-trick in the series against Kenya. In the best bowling figures, Yuvraj Singh of India secured the fifth position with the statistics of 10 overs, 5 wickets and 31 runs.
Kumar Sangakkara holds the second position in making the maximum number of dismissals by a wicket keeper (Caught: 9 and Stumped: 4) and Mahela Jayawardene has the maximum (8) number of catches to his name. So, Sri Lanka is good in the fielding side too.
But one cannot forget that Yuvraj Singh has got 4 Man of the Match Awards out of the 8 matched played and is in the first rank!
So, with all the mind baffling figures, India and Sri Lanka will get on to the pitch to create nothing less than History!
Tags: Aleem Dar, Final Match, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, India, Mumbai, Simon Taufel, Sri Lanka, Wankhede Stadium, World Cup
