ICC T20 World Cup cricket carnival of the limited format version begins today amidst pomp and grandeur in Sri Lanka, today. The cricket carnival that shall extend till October 07, is backed by billions of global fans praying for the victory of their home team. It is a global battle of different kinds, set out for the first time in Asia, today. Well the island country bags the honors in this maiden event, in the continent. Another first is the event shall reach, a record audience of more than 1.5 billion, for the first time. This was made possible by the host broadcaster and ICC Global Media Rights partner ESPN STAR Sports (ESS) which shall gear up to broadcast across 226 territories. Phenomenal is it not...
The entire island country is spruced up to welcome the guests of honor from 11 nations. Already the teams have arrived and have been formally invited with a welcome program on 15 September. The warm up matches had commenced from September 13 and will be stretched till 19 of this month, even though the competition actually begins on September 18.
India had played two of these warm up matches against powerful neighbors. In the first match, India defeated Sri Lanka. However in the second match India lost a tremendous chance to beat arch rival, last evening in the encounter at Colombo. India made a solid 185 in the stipulated 20 overs. The batsmen did their best on the most wanted day. But the bowlers could not defend the score. Among the Indian bowlers the only successful was Ravindran Ashwin who was celebrating his birthday yesterday. Ashwin took four wickets but that could not make any difference to the agile Pakistan side. It was Kamran Akmal who made the difference, with his unbeaten 92 runs that ruined the Indian attack.
By all means this encounter was the most awaited one because of many reasons. The main reason due to their groupings the two might not meet at all in the ultimate contest. Now the victory by the Pakistan players needs to be celebrated in style because they could take a sweet revenge on the Indians. This victory must compensate in a small way for their loss in the semifinal with India in their last world cup T20 clash in 2011. The consolation was team India also lost out in the finals, eventually to England.
Now let's have a look at the prediction of the winners of this World Cup 2012, all eyes on Sri Lanka to wind the cup. But keep watching this space for a ringside analysis of the game by your favorite tweeters.(With inputs from internet-AW AarKay)
