World Cup 2011 opening ceremony biggest cheer for Shakib Al Hasan's arrival

Those who were not at the Bangabandhu National Stadium will never know just how successful and moving the opening ceremony of the 2011 World Cup was. Those who saw it on TV would have cringed at Sonu Nigam crooning an English inspirational song, Bryan Adams of all people being the top draw, recordings of Shankar-Ehsan-Loy's unremarkable theme song playing on loop, and the politicians inducing yawns with their speeches.

Those who were here, though, saw, heard and felt the heartbeat of Bangladesh cricket. What happened inside the stadium, sold out by 25,000 people welcoming the World Cup with open arms, was only a minor part of it. There were 25,000 other fans - and this is a conservative estimate, mind you - outside the stadium, with no hope or intention of getting in, partying away to their own rhythm of vuvuzelas, carrying Bangladesh flags about 50 feet in length, celebrating the World Cup.

The reception for the World Cup on the streets of Dhaka was the closest cricket can get to a football World Cup. There was no giant screen outside for them, the music could hardly be heard there, there was obviously no alcohol to keep them going, but they danced and made merry, choreographing their own moves. There was not an inch of space in about a kilometre's radius of the Bangabandhu Stadium. Nigam, Adams, Mustafa Kamal (the BCB chief) might as well have not turned up. The crowd either side of the stadium wall couldn't care less.

On opening World Cup warm up days Bangladesh and West Indies win

The first day of the World Cup warm-up games saw Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh cruise to easy wins in their respective games. Sri Lanka crushed Netherlands in a game at SSC in Colombo, West Indies ran home in a reasonably tough game against Kenya while Bangladesh pounded the Canada side to take home a lot of confidence before the start of the World Cup.

Sri Lanka batted first against Netherlands and scored a whopping 351 in their 50 overs. This was mainly possible due to an innings of substance from T Dilshan (78) and because of the valuable support that he got from the other half century-scorers in the team. Thilan Samaraweera, promoted to the number three position got a 60, while Chamara Silva and Chamara apugedera scored 54 and 50 respectively. Strangely enough, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene did not bat in the game.

In reply, Netherlands did not have any chance of crossing over the line and looked deflated from the very beginning. They lost wickets at regular intervals and collapsed to 37/4 at one stage before being rescued by the captain of the day - Bas Zuiderent and Tom de Grooth. Zuiderent made 38 while Grooth scored 76 as the side was taken to a relative position of safety, ending with 195 all out. Dilhara Fernando ran through the tail and ended with a haul of four wickets.

In another game of the World Cup warm-ups, West Indies took on Kenya at the SSC in Colombo. West Indies batted first and after the early trouble that they were in at 65/4, were propelled to a decent total by Ramnaresh Sarwan. Sarwan made a century and ended on 123 off 125 balls while his partnership with Dwayne Bravo (54) ensured that the side had had a decent 253/8 in the 50 overs.

Kenya did have a good enough start to their innings and were 98/1 at one stage. Unfortunately for them, they had used up many overs to get there and in the quest to quell the mounting asking rate, the side was bowled out for 192. Andre Russell bagged four wickets.

In the third game of the day, Canada were bowled out for 112 batting first at Chittagong. Shakib al Hasan had three wickets to his name before Tamim Iqbal raced off to a fantastic 69 to push the side to a nine-wicket win over the Canadians.

Shakib Al Hasan sold to KKR at 425K USD in IPL 2011 Auction

Shakib Al Hasan is a Bangladeshi international cricketer and captain of the national team. He is an allrounder, batting left-handed in the middle order and bowling slow left-arm orthodox. Emerging from Bangladesh’s only educational sports institution, Shakib made his One Day International debut against Zimbabwe in August 2006. In 2009 Shakib topped the ICC’s allrounder rankings.

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