Men's Cricket World Cup 2011 – Overview

Dates: 19 February – 2 April

Location: India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh

Number of teams: 14

Overs per innings: 50

Number of matches: 49

Format: Teams split into two groups of seven each, in which teams competed in a round-robin format. The top four teams from each group progressed to the quarter-finals.

Semi-finals: Ajantha Mendis was the pick of the bowlers with 3/35 as Sri Lanka bowled New Zealand out for 217 in Colombo. Tillakaratne Dilshan (73 off 93 balls) and Kumar Sangakkara (54 off 79 balls) shepherded the chase with patient half-centuries for a five-wicket win.

India posted 260/9 against old foes Pakistan as Sachin Tendulkar produced a sublime 115-ball 85, despite Wahab Riaz bowling a fiery spell that earned him 5/46 in Chandigarh. The target might have seemed chaseable, but each of India's five bowlers picked up two wickets apiece to bowl Pakistan out for 231.

Finals: The Wankhede Stadium was treated to a superb century from the bat of Mahela Jayawardena, who guided Sri Lanka to 274/6 with an 88-ball 103.

Things looked shaky for India as they lost Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar early, but Gautam Gambhir (97 off 122) and MS Dhoni (91* off 79) delivered in a big way to secure a six-wicket win for India, sealed with an iconic six by the captain.

Top run-scorer: Tillakaratne Dilshan – 500 runs

Top wicket-taker: Shahid Afridi and Zaheer Khan – 21 wickets

Player of the Series: Yuvraj Singh

Retirements: Muttiah Muralitharan, Andrew Strauss, Ashish Nehra, Scott Styris, Shoaib Akhtar

**World Cup song:**De Ghuma Ke by Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa