Recently India has made its name for the 2024 T20 World Cup. And this is India’s fourth world cup trophy. But no one can forget that 50-50 over world cup of 2007. Nowadays when India gives a very good performance in the World Cup then even now people say that look today we are playing the final and there was a World Cup in 2007 when we got eliminated from the group stage itself.
The 2007 World Cup made crores of Indians cry. But we were not alone in drowning in grief; our neighbouring country Pakistan was also eliminated from the group stage of the World Cup. And another very big incident happened with Pakistan. When Pakistan was out, the very next day i.e. on 18th March 2007, Pakistan’s coach Bob Woolmer died in his bathroom. Everyone was shocked as to what had happened.
So today we will know the whole story of this World Cup and Bob Woomer’s death.
The 2007 world cup was the ninth cricket world cup organised by the ICC in which 16 teams participated. And 4 teams were divided into 4 groups. This world cup was played from 13 March 2007 to 28 April 2007. And in this entire tournament 51 matches were played. But we got to see only 3 matches of India. And this world cup took place in west indies. India was placed in group B. In which along with India, there were Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bermuda. And Pakistan was kept in group D. There was Zimbabwe, West Indies and Ireland along with Pakistan.
2 teams from each group had to reach Super 8. But a big turnaround was going to happen in this World Cup. And this reversal was done by Bangladesh with India and Ireland with Pakistan. The Indian team was filled with great players and everyone thought that the Indian team would definitely play the final but such a turn of events happened that all the Indians could not control their tears.
The day was 17th March, the place was the port of Spain, Sachin, Sachin, everyone was shouting, there was an atmosphere of happiness everywhere, there was a toss, India won the toss and decided the batting.
Saurav Ganguly and Virendra Sehwag open the innings. Sehewag was out on 2 runs. Never mind, we still have a very long batting line-up. Robin Uthappa comes out on 9 runs, now Sachin Tendulkar comes out on 7 runs. Saurav Ganguly had held one wicket and scored 66 runs, but apart from him the whole team was out after scoring one run and could score only 191 runs in 49.3 overs. Everyone was shocked as to what had happened. But everyone still had confidence that India would win because Bangladesh was in front. And Bangladesh surprised everyone.
Bangladesh chased the target of 192 runs with 9 balls remaining, meaning they chased it in 48.3 overs. And the hearts of crores of Indians were broken. But wait, we still have 2 matches left, if we win both the matches then we will reach Super 8. India had a match with Bermuda and Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka was a very strong team at that time. India had scored 413 runs against Bermuda and won the match very easily. Now it was very important to win the last match against Sri Lanka. There was a match with Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka scored 254 runs and the Indian team could score only 185 runs and was out of the world cup. Everyone outside was left stunned as to what had happened. Everyone was crying.
People were very angry against the team. Demonstrations started taking place against them everywhere. Because everyone wanted India to win this world cup as India had more than one star cricketers but despite this the Indian team was eliminated from the group stage of the world cup. And at that time the coach of the team was Greg Chappel. And everyone was saying that due to the politics of Greg Chappel the team was not united and that is why we lost. After this Greg Chappell resigned and Rahul Dravid left the captaincy.
After this, another big reversal happened in the World Cup. Ireland had defeated Pakistan, and Pakistan was also eliminated.
And in Pakistan people follow the trend of breaking TVs a lot, so a lot of TVs were broken there and everyone was crying there too.
Both India and Pakistan are big teams at that time, but both teams went out together.
But after 6 months, the T20 World Cup starts in September. This was the first edition of the T20 World Cup. Both India and Pakistan were eliminated from the 50-50 World Cup group stage, and the T20 World Cup final was between these two and India achieved a thrilling victory against Pakistan and made its name in the first T20 World Cup.So we Indians had forgotten what happened in the 50-50 World Cup and were dancing and rejoicing in the joy of the T20 World Cup, there was an atmosphere of joy everywhere.
And after this the Indian cricket team just kept growing and won the 2011 world cup, 2013 champions trophy, Asia cup, and now the T20 world cup. And at this time the Indian team is the strongest team and defeating the Indian team is not just difficult but impossible.
Now we see that after Pakistan was eliminated, their coach Bob Woolmer died a mysterious death which is still unsolved.
When Ireland defeated Pakistan, the next day i.e. on 18 March 2007, such an incident occurred in Pegasus Hotel, Kingston, which stunned the whole world.
Pakistan team coach Bob Woolmer was found dead in the bathroom of his room. At that time Woolmer was lying on his back without clothes. There was blood on his face as well.
Bob Woolmer was immediately taken to the hospital where the doctors declared him dead.
It was said that he was shocked by the team’s defeat and had a heart attack. Woolmer was a diabetic patient and he used to take medicine for it.