World Cup Warriors

In 1983 we gave every Indian a reason to smile when we lifted the World Cup. It was repeated gloriously in 2011. My message to the Boys in Blue is " fear none. Have faith in yourselves. I always believed "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul." The boys can do it again! --Mohinder AmarnathVijay Lokapally has been covering sports for The Hindu and Sportstar since 1986. Cricket has been close to his heart and considers himself fortunate to have written on a game he has loved so much. Cricket reporting took him to far corners of the world. He is among the few from India who have sent despatches from literally every venue of the cricketing world. Lokapally has the distinction of covering his first World Cup in 1987 and later reported on the editions in 1996, 1999, 2003 and 2011. He considers the 1999 and 2003 travels to England and South Africa for the World Cup among the high points of his cricket reportage. The 1983 World Cup was the trigger point for Lokapally to take to sports journalism and he is proud to count some of the big names of Indian cricket among his friends. He lives in Delhi with wife Sunanda and son Akshay.The stage is set.The ICC Cricket World Cup-the tournament and trophy which every international player hopes to win and which cricket fans dream their country to hold one day-is here. With all the ten nations having named their squads, this book bursts with information about everything you need to know about our Boys in Blue, who are most likely to light up the tournament with their skill and talent. As the teams prepare to join hosts England for cricket's biggest bash and to loosen defending champions Australia's grip on the coveted trophy, veteran sports journalist Vijay Lokapally gives us a peek into India's squad with a twist. In a first of its kind, celebrated former cricketers Kapil Dev, Madan Lal, Sandeep Patil, K. Srikkanth, Yashpal Sharma, Kirti Azad, Balvinder Sandhu, among the players who beat the then invincible West Indies in 1983 to win the Prudential World Cup at Lord's, speak about their counterparts in the current Indian line-up. Views from L. Sivaramakrishnan, Venkatapathy Raju, Kiran More, Robin Singh, Venkatesh Prasad, Manoj Prabhakar, Nayan Mongia and Piyush Chawla, all former World Cup stars, make this a unique and valuable narrative.Packed with brief World Cup and individual players statistics, match fixtures, this book is essential reading for all those cricket fans who bleed blue!