MUMBAI: India's in seventh heaven, Sri Lanka reached the final and Pakistan reached the last four. Only Bangladesh out of cricket's main Asian nations had a bad World Cup. But Australia, South Africa and England are back at home, licking their wounds and reduced to watching the World Cup final on television, admiring India's maturity and talent in the one-day game while holding investigations into why they flopped so badly. The captains of all three nations and New Zealand – which at least reached the semifinal – have either quit or are on the verge of doing so. Australia's Ricky Ponting stepped down after one of Australia's weakest performances for many years, South Africa's Graeme Smith has dropped the captaincy of the one-day team while England's Andrew Strauss and Kiwi Daniel Vettori are considering their futures. Apart from New Zealand, the three traditional powers of world cricket were poorly prepared for the World Cup. England looked exhausted after almost six months on the road and Australia is still struggling to carry out the transition from the era of Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist, who watched India lift the trophy at the Wankhede Stadium on Saturday night. South Africa, on paper, looked a commanding team and was one of the favorite, but was unable to finish games off, living up to the “choker” tag it has acquired in recent years. Bangladesh is still a minor nation in international cricket, even though the team occasionally beats the major powers. The team lacks depth, however, and relies too much on a couple of individuals. Pakistan should have been one of the hosts and just might have advanced to the final if their players had been allowed to play on the slow wickets of Lahore and Karachi, according to the original plan. But the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore meant Pakistan had to give up its status as co-host. Pakistan had a disastrous run-up to the tournament, losing three players to a match-fixing scandal, but found an unlikely hero in flamboyant allrounder Shahid Afridi, who took on the captaincy, apparently on condition that he was given complete control over team selection, a rare opportunity in the intensely political world of Pakistani cricket. Afridi was a revelation and led a resurgent Pakistan side that just failed at the semifinal hurdle to the eventual winners. It was India that showed the consistency and depth needed to become champion. Its bowling was far from world-beating, but it was disciplined and prepared to concede up to 300 runs, knowing the batsmen could chase down such a total. The next World Cup in 2015 will be held in Australia and New Zealand and will consist of only the top 10-ranked teams, which will most probably exclude Kenya, Ireland, Zimbabwe and Canada, which made little impact. India team fined The triumphant Indian cricket team has been fined for its slow over rate in the World Cup final against Sri Lanka, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said Sunday. Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men were one over short of the target at the end of Saturday's final when time allowances were taken into consideration, the ICC said in a statement. “As such, Dhoni was fined 20 percent of his match fee while his players received 10 percent fines,” the statement read. The fine would hardly hit the Indians' pockets since the cricket board here awarded 10 million rupees ($353,700) to every member of the squad that won the country's second 50-over World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium. On top of that, Dhoni would get 20 million rupees from the Delhi government, while four Delhi players – Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Ashish Nehra, and Virat Kohli – will get 10 million each. Sachin is Yuvraj's driving force India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh ended a nationwide guessing game by revealing the identity of the driving force behind his World Cup heroics – Sachin Tendulkar. After steering India to a World Cup quarterfinal victory against champion Australia with an impressive all-round display, Yuvraj hinted there was a special person in his life inspiring his fine form. He refused then to reveal the identity of the person concerned but promised to reveal all if India made it to the final where Saturday it defeated Sri Lanka to win the world title. “I'm very sorry to disappoint you guys. It was not for my girlfriend but for Sachin Tendulkar,” said Yuvraj. Yuvraj was echoing the wishes of millions of India fans, who'd been desperate for 37-year-old star batsman Tendulkar to fulfil his dream of winning a first World Cup title at his sixth, and probably last, attempt.
