by Tanu Bhandari

Created on: July 14, 2009

The world Twenty20 cricket tournament is a new venture by International Cricket Council. India won the inaugural championship, held in 2007 in South Africa. Twenty20 cricket has enhanced the popularity and success of cricket around the world.

Venue - The 2009 ICC (International Cricket Council) World Twenty20 Cricket tournament was hosted by England in the month of June 2009.Total twenty seven matches were played on some of the famous and finest cricket grounds of the world; Lord's, Oval and Trent Bridge in Nottingham.

Teams - Twelve teams participated in the tournament. The ten test playing nations namely; Australia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, England, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, West Indies qualify automatically for the tournament. Ireland and Netherlands emerged as the remaining two teams, being the finalist of the qualifier tournament. Zimbabwe backed out due to some political reasons hence Scotland got the lucky entry for this seventeen days cricket extravaganza.

Twelve teams were divided into four groups of three teams each.

Group A - India, Bangladesh, Ireland

Group B - Pakistan, England, Netherlands

Group C - Australia, Sri Lanka, West Indies

Group D - New Zealand, South Africa, Scotland

Group matches were played in round robin fashion. Each team was awarded two points for winning and zero for losing. If the match ended in a draw the teams shared the point that is one each. Depending on the points attained, the teams were ranked within the group and top two teams from each group were selected for the super eight.

Super-8

The eight teams which qualified for the next level, super-8 were again split into two groups.

Group 1 - South Africa, England, India, West Indies

Group 2 - Sri Lanka, Pakistan, New Zealand and Ireland.

South Africa topped Group-1with West Indies being the runner up. In Group-2

Sri Lankans topped the chart with Pakistan on the second spot.

Semifinal

The first semifinal between South Africa and Pakistan was played on 18thJune at Trent Bridge. Pakistan reached the finals, defeating South Africa by a narrow margin of seven runs. Sri Lanka, the second finalist beat West Indies by fifty seven runs at Oval on 19th June.

Final

The exciting grand finale was played on 21st June at Lord's, between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Lankans batted first, made a reasonable score of 138 runs in twenty overs with four wickets in hand. Pakistan attained the target in little less than nineteen overs. Shahid Afridi outshined all with his quick 54 runs from 40 balls, winning the tournament for Pakistan. He was awarded, man of the match, title for his brilliant performance. Pakistan beat Sri Lanka by eight wickets and became champions of 2009 ICC World Twenty20 Cricket tournament.

Few interesting statistics of 2009 ICC World Twenty20 Cricket tournament

Man of the series -Tillakaratne Dilshan of Sri Lanka made 317 runs in six matches, with an average of 63.40; most runs made by any player during the tournament.

Best Strike rate- Aaron Redmond of New Zealand had the best strike rate of 171.19 in 3 matches he played scoring 101 runs.

Yuvraj Singh of India scored nine sixes in five matches, highest by any player in the tournament.

Umar Gul of Pakistan took thirteen wickets in seven matches, highest by any bowler in the tournament.

Now cricket fans across the world are looking forward to many more thrilling Twenty20 cricket tournaments.

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