Twenty-20 World Cup Cricket Tournament also known as ICC World Twenty20 is the international championship of Twenty20 cricket. Twenty-20 World Cup Cricket Tournament was organised by cricket`s governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament currently consists of 16 teams, comprising all ten ICC full members and six other associate or affiliate members chosen through the World Twenty20 Qualifier. All matches played are accorded Twenty20 International status.
Format of Twenty-20 World Cup Cricket Tournament
The brand new phenomenon of Twenty-20 World Cup Cricket Tournament has started in the world of cricket, has brought quite a massive change in the traditional concept of the game of cricket. This new phenomenon is the latest format of cricket called the Twenty20 where the duration of the game has been cut down to 20 overs and this change was done in order to make the game of cricket more exciting.
New Format of Twenty-20 World Cup Cricket Tournament
According to the new format, both the teams play 20 overs each and thus finish the match quicker than the ODI matches. Another new concept has been introduced in the new format as well and the concept is similar to the tiebreaker system in the game of football. According to the new concept, if the scores of both the teams remain level after the limited overs of the match, then five cricketers from each team will bowl directly to the open wickets and the team that will hit the wicket most of the times will be announced as the winner of the match. This rule is named as "Bowl Out" and so far it has been implemented only once in a match between India and Pakistan during the Twenty20 World Cup, 2007.
History of Twenty20 World Cup Cricket Tournament
The history of the Twenty20 World Cup Cricket Tournament affirms the fact that the new format of cricket named the Twenty20 has been invented just a few years back in England and the father of this format is a person named Nick Borcich. As the English people were quite bored with the lengthy County matches and at a time they even became bored with the ODI matches as well, Nick came with the idea to cut down the duration of the game so that the total match can be finished within 3-4 hours. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) also liked the idea very much and it arranged the first Twenty20 cricket tournament between the county teams. In a particular match of the tournament, there were a large number of spectators came and enjoyed the match.
As the ECB got considerable success by organizing the tournament, the boards of the other countries also got encouragement and they also started arranging their own Twenty20 cricket tournaments in their countries. All of these tournaments in Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, England and South Africa became popular almost instantly. This increasing popularity of the new format of cricket across the world also did persuade the world governing body of Cricket the International Cricket Council (ICC) to think about it seriously and it also decided to organise the first ever Twenty20 World Cup Cricket Tournament in 2007.
1st Twenty20 World Cup Cricket Tournament
The first ever Twenty20 World Cup cricket has been organised very successfully in South Africa very recently and the entire cricket playing nations of the world took part in the tournament. The tournament was a huge success for the ICC all the cricket lovers across the world gave their active participation to the tournament. The South African people made sure the stadiums were jam-packed during the matches and the Sports channels were also quite successful to give the cricket lovers the taste of the game. The tournament started from 11th September 2007 and ended on 24th September 2007. India became the champion of the tournament after defeating their arch rivals Pakistan in a nail-biting final match.
Groups in Twenty20 World Cup Cricket
In the tournament, the ICC divided the teams in four different groups and decided that the top two teams from each groups will go to the next round of the tournament named the Super8. The teams like South Africa, West Indies and Bangladesh were included in the Group A and the Group B teams were England, Australia and Zimbabwe. New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Kenya formed the Group C and the superpowers of Asia the India and Pakistan were included in the Group D along with Scotland. The teams like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Australia, England, South Africa and England went through the Super8 level of the tournament from where India, Pakistan, New Zealand and Australia became successful to make it to the Semi Finals. In the Semi Finals, India beat the world champions Australia in a wonderful match to reach the final and their arch rivals Pakistan also crashed New Zealand to make the final an India-Pakistan classic.
Final Match of inaugural Twenty20 World Cup Cricket Tournament
In the Final match of the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup Cricket Tournament, the players of the two great teams India and Pakistan fought greatly with each other and it was indeed an all-time great match in the history of world cricket. India beat Pakistan by a mere five runs to become the Champions and to write their name in the hall of fame of the world cricket forever. Apart from creating history, the Indian team also won huge prize money of $2.24 million and lots of praises as well. The Indian team went to the world cup with having a lot of new young faces in the team and also leaving the great players like Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble back in the country. The dashing, hard hitting batsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni was the skipper of the team and, he indeed done a great job by leading his team from the front. He has played superbly throughout the tournament and among his teammates, the players like Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir, R.P. Singh, Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh also performed brilliantly to help India win the cup. The Indian stylish batsman Yuvraj Singh made an exceptional World Record in the match against England by hitting 6 sixes in an over.