Government mull Bharat Ratna for Sachin Tendulkar

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After 21 years of cricket, 99 international centuries and now The World Cup, the country's highest civilian honour might be the next feather in Sachin Tendulkar's Cap.
 
The Home Ministry is seriously considering the rising chorus for the batting maestro to be bestowed with the Bharat Ratna, sources said.
 
The demand to honour the batting maestro with the Bharat Ratna had gained momentum after he scored a double ton in the ODI series against South Africa last year. 
 
Headlines Today was the first channel to initiate a campaign for a Bharat Ratna for Sachin.
 
Now Tendulkar's name for the honour has been recommended by a number of politicians as well.
 
In fact, the Maharashtra assembly has passed a resolution requesting the central government to confer the Bharat Ratna on Tendulkar. The BJP too has demanded highest honour for the players.
 
If Sachin is conferred with the honour, it would be another first. No other sportsperson has ever been given the Bharat Ratna.
 
Meanwhile, former Indian Skipper Rahul Dravid has said that Sachin is already a Bharat Ratna for the country. 
 
Indian captain M.S. Dhoni too has backed the batting genius for the nation's highest civilian honour.

"Sachin deserves the Bharat Ratna. He has done great things for the country," Dhoni said.

Coaching India Most Cherished Moment Of My Life, Says Kirsten

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Gary Kirsten on Tuesday officially stepped down as the coach of the Indian cricket team and said that working with M.S. Dhoni and his boys had been one of the most cherished moments of his life.

"Coaching the Indian team has been one of my most cherished moments. This Indian team is in a very healthy position. It has been a massive privilege to be a part of Team India," Kirsten said at a press conference.

"My goal while coaching India had been to make it the No. 1 team in the world," he said.

Kirsten lavished praise on Indian cricketers, especially captain Dhoni and Sachin Tendulkar. "Dhoni is the best captain in the world. He always gives his 100 per cent," he said.

Asked if he saw Sachin playing in the 2015 World Cup, Kirsten said: "It would be great to have him around. I hope Sachin keeps going as long as he enjoys it. One never knows how long that could be."

Kirsten said the Indian team's fielding had shown immense progress. "I was surprised to see how the players fielded during the knockout games at the World Cup," he said, making a special mention of Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli.

He said Kohli was now ready for Test cricket and Ishant Sharma was a star of the future.

Kirsten said he had been overwhelmed by the love the players and fans had shown for him. "It has been one of the hardest goodbyes I have had to make," he said.

IPL 4 Teams, Squad - All 10 Teams Players List for 2011 IPL, IPL4 Squads

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2011 Indian Premier League - IPL4, is going to start after 6 days of 2011 Cricket World Cup, and almost all the teams completed their players and declared the captains. All the teams have selected new players and made new captains after two new franchises, Pune Sahara Warriors and Indi Commandos Kerala added in the 4th edition of IPL and auction was held on 8th-9th January 2011.

“Find the list of players for all the 10 teams participating in 2011 Indian Premier League.”

Chennai Super Kings Team/Squad for 2011 IPL4:

MS Dhoni (Cap), Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay, Michael Hussey, Scott Styris, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Albie Morkel, Tim Southee, Subramaniam Badrinath, George Bailey, Doug Bollinger, Dwayne Bravo, Faf du Plessis, Ben Hilfenhaus, Shadab Jakati, Joginder Sharma, Suraj Randiv, Nuwan Kulasekara, Srikkanth Anirudha, Yo Mahesh, Sudeep Tyagi, Abhinav Mukund, Kuthethurshri Vasudevadas, Ganapathi Vignesh

Mumbai Indians Team/Squad for 2011 IPL4:

Sachin Tendulkar (Cap), Kieron Pollard, Andrew Symonds, Rohit Sharma, James Franklin, Harbhajan Singh, Lasith Malinga, Munaf Patel, Davy Jacobs, Clint McKay, ADilhara Fernando, mbati Rayudu, Dhawal Kulkarni, Ali Murtaza, Abu Nechim, Aiden Blizzard, Yuzvendra Chahal, Moises Henriques, Sarul Kanwar, Rajagopal Sathish, Tirumalasetti Suman, Pawan Suyal, Aditya Tare (wk), Santosh Yadav, Suryakumar Yadav

Royal Challengers Bangalore Team/Squad for 2011 IPL4:

Daniel Vettori (Cap), Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Saurabh Tiwary, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mohammad Kaif, Abhimanyu Mithun, Zaheer Khan, Charl Langeveldt, Dirk Nannes, Ryan Ninan, Asad Pathan, Luke Pomersbach, Rilee Rossouw, Johan van der Wath, Jonathan Vandiar, Mayank Agarwal, Sreenath Aravind, Arun Karthik, BN Bharath, Raju Bhatkal, Abrar Kazi, Nuwan Pradeep, Muralidharen Gautam

Delhi Daredevils Bangalore Team/Squad for 2011 IPL4:

wag (Cap), David Warner, Naman Ojha (wk), Irfan Pathan, James Hopes, Colin Ingram, Andrew McDonald, Morne Morkel, Roelof van der Merwe, Venugopal Rao, Umesh Yadav, Ajit Agarkar, Varun Aaron, Travis Birt, Robin Bist, Unmukt Chand, Ajit Chandila, Ashok Dinda , Aaron Finch, Robert Frylinckl, Yogesh Nagar, Rajesh Pawar, Aavishkar Salvi, Sridharan Sriram, Vikas Mishra, Matthew Wade, Tejashwi Yadav, Vivek Yadav, Shahbaz Nadeem

Kolkata Knight Riders Bangalore Team/Squad for 2011 IPL4:

Gautam Gambhir (Cap), Yusuf Pathan, Jacques Kallis, Brad Haddin (wk), Brett Lee, Shakib Al Hasan, Eoin Morgan, Jaidev Unadkat, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Iqbal Abdulla, Sarabjit Ladda, Rajat Bhatia, Manvinder Bisla, Shreevats Goswami, James Pattinson, Pradeep Sangwan, Shami Ahmed, Laxmi Shukla, Ryan ten Doeschate, Manoj Tiwary

Deccan Chargers Team/Squad for 2011 IPL4:

Kumar Sangakkara (Cap/wk), Kevin Pietersen, Cameron White, Jean-Paul Duminy, Shikhar Dhawan, Michael Lumb, Ishant Sharma, Dale Steyn, Rusty Theron, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra, Ashish Reddy, Anand Rajan, Ankit Sharma, Akash Bhandari, Bharat Chipli, Daniel Christian, Kedar Devdhar, Manpreet Gony, Harmeet Singh, Ishank Jaggi, Chris Lynn, Dwaraka Ravi Teja, Jaydev Shah, Sunny Sohal, Arjun Yadav, Ishan Malhotra

Kings XI Punjab Team/Squad for 2011 IPL4:

Adam Gilchrist (Cap/wk), Shaun Marsh, David Hussey, Stuart Broad, Piyush Chawla, Ryan Harris, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Praveen Kumar, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Abhishek Nayar, Ryan McLaren, Love Ablish, Siddharth Chitnis, Vikramjeet Malik, Nathan Rimmington, Nitin Saini, Shalabh Srivastava, Sunny Singh, Amit Yadav, Bhargav Bhatt, Bipul Sharma, Mandeep Singh, Paras Dogra, Paul Valthaty

Rajasthan Royals Team/Squad for 2011 IPL4:

Shane Warne (Cap), Shane Watson, Ross Taylor, Shaun Tait, Rahul Dravid, Paul Collingwood, Johan Botha, Swapnil Asnodkar, Deepak Chahar, Aakash Chopra, Aditya Dole, Ashok Menaria, Pankaj Singh, Ajinkya Rahane, Abhishek Raut, Siddharth Trivedi, Dishant Harendra Yagnik, Ankeet Chavan, Nayan Doshi, Samad Fallah, Dinesh Salunkhe, Amit Singh, Stuart Binny, Deepak Chahar, Faiz Fazal, Sumit Narwal, Amit Paunikar, Pinal Shah

Pune Warriors Team/Squad for 2011 IPL4:

Yuvraj Singh (Cap), Robin Uthappa, Graeme Smith, Jesse Ryder, Callum Ferguson, Murali Kartik, Ashish Nehra, Nathan McCullum, Angelo Mathews, Wayne Parnell, Jerome Taylor, Tim Paine (wk), Dheeraj Jadhav, Ganesh Gaikwad, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Kamran Khan, Harshad Khadiwale, Mitchell Marsh, Shrikant Mundhe, Alfonso Thomas, Eklavya Dwivedi, Mohnish Mishra, Manish Pandey, Sachin Rana, Rahul Sharma, Imtiyaz Ahmed, Harpreet Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mithun Manhas, Shrikant Wagh

Kochi Tuskers Kerala (IPL Kochi) Team/Squad for 2011 IPL4:

Mahela Jayawardene (Cap), Brendon McCullum, Michael Klinger, Owais Shah, VVS Laxman, Brad Hodge, Steve O'Keefe, Ravindra Jadeja, Balachandra Akhil, Deepak Chougule, Gnaneswara Rao, Raiphi Gomez, Parthiv Patel (wk), Muttiah Muralitharan, John Hastings, Sreesanth, Thisara Perera, Ramesh Powar, RP Singh, Steven Smith, Kedar Jadhav, Chandan Madan, Sushant Marathe, Prasanth Padmanabhan

World Cup presented to Team India original, Says ICC World Cup 2011

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The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday denied handing out a replica of the World Cup to Team India.

The cricket governing body was reacting to reports that it gave away a fake world cup to the winners instead of the original one.

"The trophy presented to India was the original ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 trophy. The trophy was always intended to be presented to the winner of the event. There is no question that this was a replica," the ICC said in a statement.

"The trophy seized by Mumbai customs is the promotional, perpetual trophy which remains with ICC. That trophy will be reclaimed today and will travel back to Dubai as was always intended," the statement added.

The real trophy, valued at about $130,000 in monetary terms but priceless for the cricketers and their fans across the country, was not even brought to Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium during the finals as it was seized by the customs department on its arrival from Colombo after the Sri Lanka-New Zealand semi-final match on March 29. The trophy, according to customs rules, was not eligible for exemption from import duty.

Dhoni's men end 28-year wait, win World Cup

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“Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhoni's stellar partnership paved the way for India to end its 28-year wait for a World Cup title even as Mahela Jayawardene's century and Muttiah Muralitharan's swansong ended in hurt and despair.”

Chasing a target of 275, India were pegged on the back foot as early as the second ball of their innings when Lasith Malinga trapped Virender Sehwag plumb in front, and though the Indian opener asked for a referral, it was upheld. Malinga then struck again in the seventh over when he had Mumbai's icon Sachin Tendulkar caught behind in the seventh over. But, the title was sealed when Dhoni hit the first ball of the 49th over for a massive six to put the icing on the cake and send a billion people into raptures.

And, to make things even sweeter for India, Yuvraj Singh was named Man of the Series for his 15 wickets and 362 runs. This win has also completed the career CV of Tendulkar, who didn't contribute to the final as much as he may have liked to, but his innings in the lead-up to the final, not least in the semi-finals against Pakistan, It was also the perfect send-off for coach Gary Kirsten, who has now ended his tenure with the Indian team.

Coming back to the loss of those two early wickets, Gambhir and Kohli got the run chase back on track with a 83-run partnership as the Delhi boys got India right back into the match taking minimal risks and milking the Sri Lankan bowling to the fullest. And, even after Kohli was caught off his own bowling by Dilshan, Dhoni and Gambhir took the chase forward.

Dhoni has not been in the best of forms with the bat in the World Cup, but he potentially played the knock of his career in the final as he remained unbeaten on a 79-ball 91 and shared in a 109-run partnership with Gambhir as they snuffed the fight out of the Sri Lankan attack and broke their spirit with each run they made. And, even though Gambhir was bowled going for a massive hit when on 97.

“India wasn't denied to be a win and it was fitting that Dhoni and Yuvraj, who have shared in so many monumental partnerships were in the middle, when the mission was finally achieved.”

India vs Sri Lanka World Cup final: India is World champion

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“India created history at the Wankhede lifting the World Cup with a fine six wicket win over Sir Lanka in the final of the mega tournament”.

 Live score | Latest match photos

India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team-mates had promised Sachin Tendulkar that they would get the World Cup for him and they kept their promise.

Post the fine win the players lifted the batting maestro in their arms and took a victory round of the stadium in Mumbai.

Chasing 275, India reached the target on the second ball of the 49th over with the skipper hitting the winning shot off Nuwan Kulasekara putting his ball past the boundary for a six. In the process he put an unbeaten 91 runs on board, signalling his come back to form. 

On the other end was Yuvraj Singh - the man who helped India win many a matches in the tournament. No wonder he went home with the coveted 'Player of the tournament' 

Earlier in the innings, Lasith Malinga claimed Virender Sehwag on the second ball trapping him leg-before.

Post the first wicket, Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir got busy trying to revive the innings and they were doing it at a good rate scoring in boundaries. 

But as all good things come to an end, their partnership too ended early and again the man in question was Malinga. Tendulkar went for a cut but ended up giving an edge to keeper Sangakkara with 32/2 on board. He scored 18.

Then Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli got on with a partnership scoring 83 runs for third wicket. But, just when their stand started to look dangerous Tillakaratne Dilshan got the vital breakthrough catching Kohli off his own bowling to send him back on 35 and India went down to 114/3.

Gautam Gambhir and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who sent himself up the order at number five, decided to carry on from where Kohli had left. The two batted on completing a 100-run partnership. They continued rotating the strike and milking the opposition bowlers. 

Unfortunately for India, Gambhir missed his ton by three runs as Sri Lanka pacer Thissara Perera clean bowled him in the 42nd over. At the stage India were 223/4.

There were a few tense moments too with the India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni surviving a run out chance in the 42nd over. Television replays showed that he just about made it to the white popping line. 

Indians took the Batting Powerplay in the 45th over and effectively utilised it with Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni chipping away at the target with urgency.

The two helped India home in the 49th over with 277/4 on board - a fine six wicket win. Skipper Dhoni walked away with the Man-of-the-Match award.

Sri Lanka innings:

Mahela Jayawardene scored a ton as Sri Lanka put 274/6 in 50 overs against India in the World Cup final at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday.

Upul Tharanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan started of cautiously as India seamers S Sreesanth and Zaheer Khan got busy trying to keep a good line after Sri Lanka won the toss.

Soon Zaheer got the man he wanted claiming opener Upul Tharanga on the first ball of the seventh over. The ball took the edge of Tharanga's bat and Virender Sehwag took a fine catch in the first slip. Sri Lanka score at the stage 17/1.

In the 17th over Harbhajan Singh accounted for the other opener Tillakaratne Dilshan with his turner. It was a soft dismissal that took away the batsman's leg stump when he was trying to sweep the ball down the leg side. He fell for 33 and Lanka fell to 60/2.

Post that wicket, captain Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene started off slowly dealing in singles but gradually upped the tempo. The duo had put 62 runs for the third wicket, when Yuvraj Singh got the man India wanted. An edge of Sangakkara's bat was lapped up by skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni behind the stumps on 48 and Sri Lanka went down to 122/3 in the 28th over.

Yuvraj Singh could have got another wicket in the form of Thilan Samaraweera, but the replays showed that ball had not touched the batsman's gloves or the bat before landing in skipper Dhoni's gloves. 

Soon Mahela Jayawardene and left-hand batsman Tilhan Samaraweera got on with a partnership. But as has been the case in this match whenever two batsmen got going Yuvraj got the breakthrough. Here too when the duo had put 57 runs for the fourth wicket Yuvraj Singh claimed Samaraweera on 21 with an LBW written against his name.  Sri Lanka were 179/4 at the stage.

There was more to come as Zaheer Khan struck back and removed new man Chamara Kapugedera with a well disguised slower ball. Kapugedera ended up giving an easy catch to Suresh Raina at mid-wicket and Sri Lanka were reduced to 182/5. 

Jayawardene went on to complete his century and he did it in good time using just 85 ball to reach there. In the 48th over off Zaheer Khan, he hit consecutive fours to reach the milestone. But Zaheer proved to be a little lucky on the last ball of his over with Nuwan Kulasekara getting run out on 248/6.

But, the drama was far from over as new man Thissara Perera plundered him in the last over helping the team put on 274/6. He hit two consecutive fours and then a massive six off the last ball nullified Zaheer Khan's efforts that had seen him bowl three maiden overs at the start of the innings.

In fact, Sri Lanka scored 54 runs in the last five overs - their highest total in Batting Powerplay in this World Cup.