It is prestigious and glorious news for us that Bangladesh arranged the World Cup Cricket 2011. The ICC Cricket World Cup was the tenth Cricket World cup. It was played in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It was a first time co-hosting World Cup for Bangladesh. Fourteen national cricket teams competed in the tournament including ten full members and four associate members. The world cup started with a magnificent opening ceremony which was held at Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka on 17 February, 2011. This world cup showed Bangladesh as a new host in the world‘s cricket. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh declared the world cup opening by placing her hand on a plain-scanner. This was followed by an aerial and audio-visual cricket act on a nearby building, and cultural programmes. Expectedly the Bangladesh Cultural Programme got more time than Co-hosts India and Sri Lanka. Eight matches out of forty-nine were played in Bangladesh. Bangladesh hosted these eight matches very successfully and won three matches against Ireland, England and Netherlands. This is for the first time that the final was contested by two teams from South Asia, and for the first time too that a team won the trophy on home soil. The tournament was won by India who defeated Sri Lanka by 6 wickets in the final. Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni scored an unbeaten 91 in the final and was declared the man of the match. India‘s Yuvraj Sing was declared the man of the tournament. Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi and Zaheer Khan of India were jointly most wicket takers of the tournament. And Tillakaratne Dilshan of Sri Lanka did most runs in the tournament. ICC Cricket World Cup brought magnificent glory for Bangladesh as Bangladesh was one of the co-hosting members of organising this giant sporting event. As Bangladeshis, we all feel
proud of co-hosting this tremendous event. However, we have to go a long way before our dense and thick sleep in the realm of cricket. The cricket players must be given particular and proper training in cricket in support of their demands as well as the suitability of the environment concerned so that they can bring glory to us all.