The game of cricket has a known history spanning from the 16th century to the present day, with international matches played since 1844 and the Test cricket matches since 1877. During this time, the game developed from its origins in England into a game, which is now played all over the world passionately and is more popular in the Sub-Continent Nations such as, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

In these four Nations, cricket has emerged as the most popular form of sports. The game has its origin in the Sub- Continent Nations from18th centuries and since then it has rooted itself on various grounds of World. In this span of time the above three nation has faced several rise and falls. As per Bangladesh is concerned, the origin of cricket is seen from the 19th century. The nation also came with full-fledged enthusiasm with well-known players. It is after that the four Sub-Continent Nation faced tremendous victory and defeat.

With the commencing of Cricket World Cup in 1975, the popularity of cricket reached on its peak. The game retained more zeal and passion. However, for Sub-Continent Nation World Cup it becomes like an obsession and even today the game is still holding the same passion and fervor.

When we move towards their previous history, we find that the top three Sub-Continent Nation i.e. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had a very brilliant past, holding World Cup once. India lifted the Cup in the year 1983, under the captaincy of Kapil Dev,Pakistan lifted the Cup in 1992, captained by Imran Khan. In 1996, Sri Lanka won the World Cup match, under the captaincy of Arjuna Ranatunga. As per Bangladesh is concerned, the popularity of cricket is found the same but it’s their bad luck, which never pulled them to win the Cup. Though, the team is trying hard to get that!

2007 is the year for the ninth edition of the World Cup Cricket Tournament, and the four Nations are holding its breath. The flow, the passion is still the same but only the players and the captaincy and getup has changed. The players are coming with their new outfits, with new look carried with rocking fervor and stunning passion. In this tournament India is being captained by Rahul Dravid, Sri Lanka is being captained by Mahela Jayawardene, Pakistan is being captained by Inzamam-ul-Haq and Bangladesh is being captained by Habibul Bashar.

The hopes for these four Nations are dilemmatic, as their previous performance, was not that much appealing. When we cast our view towards India and Srilanka, we found that Sri Lanka was defeated by India in the recently concluded home series. As per Pakistan is concerned, they are moving from a very bad phase, their players are injured and the team is surrounded by many controversies. And, there is no word to explain about Bangladesh. The prospect of World Cup is under dilemmatic situation but the passion and popularity is still the same among these four Sub-Continent Nations.

Hence, we will have to wait and watch the World Cup!


Author Sonia Suri is associated with Team India Performance. Team India Performance provides Cricket news of Indian cricket team, View the Indian cricket team which is going to play the world cup 2007.