In sporting parlance, it is usually said that there is no greater high in a sportsman's career than either winning an Olympic medal for his nation of being part of a World Cup winning squad. There are examples a plenty of sporting greats who catapulted to legendary status after being crowned World champions. Sporting legends like Usain Bolt, Carl Lewis, Pele, Maradona, Roger Federer, Michael Phelps, Lin Dan to name a few all went onto become world champions or world cup winners in their stellar careers.
The story is not any different in the 'Gentleman's Game' cricket where cricketers representing their national teams have stepped up their game and produced some match winning performances to help their national teams win the glittering ICC World Cup silverware and get hailed as the world champs in the limited overs format.
The Cricket World Cup has witnessed top one day international teams of yesterday’s locking horns against each other on the green turf to emerge as the world champions in the limited overs format. The four decade old history of the showpiece event in the 50-over format has produced multiple World Champions over the past eleven editions.
Winning a World Cup is undoubtedly the crowning moment in any nation's sporting history but it also has far reaching implications outside the sporting arena. The World Cup title provides a Philip to the national sentiment and gives a major boost to the happiness index of the nation, making citizens feel proud of their cricketer’s feats.
The West Indies, who won back to back World Cups in the 70s were tagged as the Kings of ODI cricket all through the 70s and early 80s. It gave a sense of immense pride to the tiny Island nations of the Caribbean who combined well and played together under the West Indies banner The 1983 World Cup heroics by Kapil Dev's team changed the sporting landscape of India as cricket overtook hockey as the most popular and viewed sport across the length and breadth of the sub-continent.
Captain courageous Imran Khan who lead Pakistan to the World Cup title in 1992, helped in changing lives of the deprived and poor by donating the prize money for a noble cause by building a cancer hospital. Sri Lanka, dubbed as underdogs in the 1996 World Cup, surprised and silenced critics by upsetting a few heavyweights and winning the title. The Islanders just dint lift the crown but also brought smiles to millions of countrymen who were in the garb of a civil war. Last but not the least, Australia took over as the dominant force from West Indies in World cricket courtesy them winning a hat trick of titles from 1999 to 2007.
Ask any South African, English and New Zealand cricketer on what is the one thing they could not achieve in their stellar cricket career and they won’t think twice in answering – winning a world cup title for their nation.
An international cricketer may achieve many individual milestones and get recognized as the best stroke maker or bowler of his era but if he misses out on winning the World Cup, there certainly is a void in his stellar list of accolades. Over the glorious history of the ICC World Cup, many legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Aram, Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist and Aravinda De Silva went onto become World Cup winners while others like Jacques Kallis, Brian Lara, Andy Flower and Martin Crowe missed out on laying hands on the ultimate prize in cricketing arena.
A world cup medal around a cricketer's neck is his moment under the sun which he can savour for lifetime. It for sure gives them greater sense of satisfaction than winning any multi-million dollar cheque in a cash spinning T20 league
The 2019 ICC World Cup being held in the United Kingdom is just over a week away and some of the very best maestros in the modern day game are fine tuning their skills to unleash the same at their opponents with an eye at the World Cup crown. The likes of Kohli, Williamson, Warner, and Smith who have proved their mantle as the best among the rest have another chance to go a step further and cement their legacy as World Cup winners.