Indian cricket and its fans would never want to remember the 2007 World Cup season. The formidable Indian team could not even go beyond the group stage in that World Cup. For Indian cricket fans across the world, it was unexpected and unacceptable. They were in a frenzy and even threw stones at cricketers’ houses. Hosted in West Indies, the 2007 edition of the World Cup was a ‘disastrous’ one for the Indian cricket team, the runners-up of the 2003 World Cup.
When the Indian cricket team, under the captaincy of the ‘great wall’ and consisting of the world-famous players like Sachin Tendulkar, SauravGanguly, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh etc. took their flight to West Indies, nobody would have ever thought of such an early return trip to their homeland. The golden generation of the Indian cricket team failed to showcase their cricketing legacy. The master blaster Sachin Tendulkar considers India’s early exit from the 2007 WC as the worst moments in his cricket career.
Placed in Group B with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bermuda, the Indian team began the tournament with a shameful and shocking loss against their neighbouring nation, Bangladesh. Bangladesh shattered the Indian team’s confidence by beating them by five wickets. Except for SauravGanguly (66 out of 129 balls) and Yuvraj Singh (47 out of 58 balls), no Indian batsman could make a decent scoring in that match. In 49.3 overs, India could score only 191 runs. It was not a very difficult task for the Bangladesh team. They won the match giving India an unforgettable loss. In the second match against Bermuda, India bounced back by setting a huge target of 414 and curbed the opponent’s innings in just 156 runs. However, the Indian team could not maintain their consistency. In the last group game against the mighty Sri Lankan team, they chased 255, but their innings came to an end when the score was just 185. With this loss, India was eliminated from the tournament. The aftermath of the early exit was terrible. The Indian cricket fans started losing hope in the team, seeing the embarrassing loss of the Indian team. In a protest, they threw stones at M S Dhoni’s house. Effigies of the cricketers including the captain Rahul Dravid and the then Indian coach Greg Chappel were burnt on the streets. After 2007 World Cup, Greg Chappel resigned and Rahul Dravid, (it was Dravid’s first and last WC as a captain) stepped down from the captaincy. However, in the next world cup that took place in India, the Indian cricket team lifted the World Cup in their homeland as a strong response to their humiliating loss in 2007.
