India at the 2007 Cricket World Cup: Results, Squad & Stats
Written and checked by CricketTakenPublished Cricket in India11 min read
India's 2007 World Cup lasted nine days and three matches, all of them at the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain. They were bowled out for 191 and beaten by Bangladesh on 17 March, made 413 for 5 against Bermuda on 19 March — the highest total in World Cup history at the time — and were beaten by 69 runs by Sri Lanka on 23 March. Two points from three matches put them third in Group B, and only the top two went to the Super 8.
The competition was the largest World Cup ever staged: sixteen teams in four groups of four, with two from each group advancing to a Super 8 in which every qualifier played the six sides from the other groups. The design left almost no room for a poor start. India lost their first match, which meant they had to beat Sri Lanka in their last, and Sri Lanka had already won both of theirs. Australia won the tournament, beating Sri Lanka in a rain-shortened final at Bridgetown for a third consecutive title.
The exit mattered beyond the arithmetic. It was the first time since 1992 that India had failed to reach a World Cup's second phase, it came four years after the run to the final in South Africa, and it ended Greg Chappell's period as coach. Six months later a differently constituted India side won the first World Twenty20 in Johannesburg, which is why 2007 reads as a hinge year rather than simply a bad one.
Three matches at one ground
| Date | Venue | Opponent | Scores | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Mar | Queen's Park Oval | Bangladesh | India 191 (49.3); Bangladesh 192/5 (48.3) | Bangladesh won by 5 wickets |
| 19 Mar | Queen's Park Oval | Bermuda | India 413/5; Bermuda 156 | India won by 257 runs |
| 23 Mar | Queen's Park Oval | Sri Lanka | Sri Lanka 254/6; India 185 (43.3) | Sri Lanka won by 69 runs |
India batted first twice and second once. Their two totals in the matches that decided the group were 191 and 185; the 413 for 5 came against a side playing its first World Cup.
Group B, and what two points bought
| Position | Team | Played | Won | Lost | Points | Net run rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sri Lanka | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 3.493 |
| 2 | Bangladesh | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | −1.523 |
| 3 | India | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1.206 |
| 4 | Bermuda | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | −4.345 |
India finished with a net run rate of 1.206 and Bangladesh with −1.523, a gap of more than two and a half runs an over, and it made no difference at all. Qualification was decided on points, and Bangladesh had beaten India while India had beaten only Bermuda. The 257-run win, which was worth an enormous amount to India's run rate, was worth exactly the same two points as any other win. Bangladesh's own progress from that group is described on the 2007 World Cup run page, and Sri Lanka's route to the final on theirs.
Dravid's fifteen
| Player | Role in the campaign |
|---|---|
| Rahul Dravid (capt) | Batter — 60 against Sri Lanka, 81 runs in three innings |
| Yuvraj Singh (vice-capt) | Middle-order batter — 83 from 46 balls against Bermuda |
| Sachin Tendulkar | Batter and part-time spin — 57 not out from 29 balls, 12 overs bowled |
| Sourav Ganguly | Opening batter — 162 runs, top scorer against Bangladesh with 66 |
| Virender Sehwag | Opening batter and off spin — 114 against Bermuda, 2 for 17 v Bangladesh |
| MS Dhoni (wk) | Wicketkeeper-batter — 29 runs in three innings, five catches and two stumpings |
| Dinesh Karthik (wk) | Reserve wicketkeeper — did not play |
| Robin Uthappa | Batter — three matches, 30 runs |
| Zaheer Khan | Left-arm fast — five wickets, 29 overs |
| Ajit Agarkar | Right-arm medium fast — four wickets, 3 for 38 against Bermuda |
| Munaf Patel | Right-arm fast-medium — four wickets at an economy rate of 3.96 |
| Harbhajan Singh | Off spin — 20 overs in two matches, no wicket |
| Anil Kumble | Leg spin — one match, 3 for 38 against Bermuda |
| Irfan Pathan | Left-arm swing and batting — did not play |
| S. Sreesanth | Right-arm fast — did not play |
Greg Chappell was the coach. Three of the fifteen never took the field, and the selection that drew most comment at the time was the balance of the batting order: Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh were all in the same top six, all of them past 25, and India played only one frontline spinner in the two matches that counted. Kumble, who had taken 3 for 38 against Bermuda, did not play against Sri Lanka.
17 March: 191, and three teenagers
India batted first on a slow pitch and never got moving. Sehwag was out for 2, Tendulkar for 7, Dravid for 14 and Dhoni for 0; Ganguly's 66 from 129 balls held one end for most of the innings and Yuvraj Singh made 47 from 58. Mashrafe Mortaza took 4 for 38 and India were bowled out for 191 in 49.3 overs, a last-wicket stand of 32 between Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel accounting for a sixth of the total.
Bangladesh's reply was built by three players in their first World Cup, all of them teenagers: Tamim Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim each passed fifty. Zaheer took 1 for 41, Munaf 2 for 39 and Sehwag 2 for 17 from five overs, and Harbhajan Singh's ten overs cost 30 without a wicket. Bangladesh reached 192 for 5 with nine balls unused. It was their second World Cup win over a Test nation and the result that shaped the rest of the group.
19 March: 413 for 5
Two days later India made the highest total in World Cup history to that point. Sehwag scored 114 from 87 balls with seventeen fours and three sixes, and shared 202 for the second wicket with Ganguly, who made 89 from 114. Yuvraj Singh then hit 83 from 46 balls with seven sixes and added 122 for the fifth wicket with Tendulkar, whose unbeaten 57 came from 29 balls. India finished on 413 for 5 at 8.26 an over.
The record had stood at Sri Lanka's 398 for 5, made against Kenya at Kandy in 1996, and India's 413 was passed in turn by Australia's 417 for 6 against Afghanistan in 2015. Bermuda were bowled out for 156, Agarkar taking 3 for 38 and Kumble 3 for 38 from 9.1 overs, and the margin of 257 runs remains among the largest in the competition's history. Sehwag's innings is one of several covered on his player page.
23 March: Muralitharan, and nine days over
India needed to beat Sri Lanka and did not come close. Sri Lanka made 254 for 6, Upul Tharanga scoring 64 and Chamara Silva 59; Zaheer Khan took 2 for 49, Munaf Patel 1 for 46 and Harbhajan Singh's ten overs went for 53 without a wicket.
India lost Tendulkar for 0 and Ganguly for 7 inside the first eight overs. Sehwag made 48 from 46 balls and Dravid 60 from 82, the two of them adding 54 for the fourth wicket, and after that the innings depended on the captain alone. Muttiah Muralitharan took 3 for 41 and India were bowled out for 185 in 43.3 overs. The tournament had begun for them on 17 March and was over on 23 March. Dravid's captaincy, which continued into that year's tour of England before he stepped down, is covered on his player page.
Sehwag 164, Zaheer 5
Three matches is a small sample and the figures below should be read as a record of what happened rather than as a measure of form. Every player who batted or bowled is listed; there is no threshold, because with three matches a threshold would hide more than it revealed.
| Player | Innings | Runs | Highest | Average | Strike rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virender Sehwag | 3 | 164 | 114 | 54.66 | 117.98 |
| Sourav Ganguly | 3 | 162 | 89 | 54.00 | 60.90 |
| Yuvraj Singh | 3 | 136 | 83 | 45.33 | 117.24 |
| Rahul Dravid | 3 | 81 | 60 | 40.50 | 72.32 |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 3 | 64 | 57* | 32.00 | 110.34 |
| Robin Uthappa | 3 | 30 | 18 | 10.00 | 62.50 |
| MS Dhoni | 3 | 29 | 29 | 9.66 | 100.00 |
| Munaf Patel | 2 | 25 | 15 | 12.50 | 78.12 |
| Harbhajan Singh | 2 | 17 | 17* | 17.00 | 73.91 |
| Zaheer Khan | 2 | 16 | 15* | 16.00 | 72.72 |
| Ajit Agarkar | 2 | 10 | 10 | 5.00 | 37.03 |
| Player | Overs | Wickets | Best | Average | Economy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zaheer Khan | 29.0 | 5 | 2/32 | 24.40 | 4.20 |
| Munaf Patel | 26.3 | 4 | 2/39 | 26.25 | 3.96 |
| Ajit Agarkar | 28.0 | 4 | 3/38 | 28.00 | 4.00 |
| Anil Kumble | 9.1 | 3 | 3/38 | 12.66 | 4.14 |
| Virender Sehwag | 10.0 | 2 | 2/17 | 16.00 | 3.20 |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 12.0 | 2 | 1/1 | 24.50 | 4.08 |
| Sourav Ganguly | 4.0 | 1 | 1/22 | 22.00 | 5.50 |
| Harbhajan Singh | 20.0 | 0 | — | — | 4.15 |
| Yuvraj Singh | 3.0 | 0 | — | — | 5.00 |
Matthew Hayden of Australia was the tournament's leading run scorer and Glenn McGrath its leading wicket-taker; no India player featured in either list, which is what three matches does to an aggregate.
Four things the 2007 figures show
More than half of India's runs came in one match. India scored 789 runs across the three games and 413 of them were made against Bermuda. In the two matches that decided qualification India made 376 in total and were bowled out both times, once in 49.3 overs and once in 43.3.
The same is true of the wickets. India took 21 wickets in the tournament and ten of them were Bermuda's. Bangladesh lost five in 48.3 overs and Sri Lanka six in fifty; against the two Test sides in the group India managed eleven wickets in a hundred overs of bowling.
The top order failed twice and succeeded once, in that order. Sehwag, Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid and Yuvraj Singh made 607 runs between them, of which 350 came in the Bermuda match. Against Bangladesh those five made 136; against Sri Lanka they made 121. A batting order that deep producing 257 runs across two innings is the single figure that explains the campaign.
India used one spinner where the conditions and the format both suggested two. Harbhajan Singh bowled 20 overs at 4.15 without taking a wicket; Kumble played the Bermuda match, took three, and was left out for Sri Lanka. Munaf Patel's economy rate of 3.96 was the best in the attack and Zaheer Khan's five wickets the most, but neither had support of the kind India's seam-and-spin sides usually carry. What followed — the first World Twenty20 title in September that year, and then a semi-final in 2015 — belongs to a different side; the tournament that came next for India's white-ball cricket is set out at the 2007 World Twenty20, and the 2015 campaign in India at the 2015 Cricket World Cup. The full sequence is in India at the World Cup, every edition of the competition is indexed on the fifty-over World Cup hub with this one at the 2007 World Cup, and the rest of the game in the country sits under cricket in India.
Sources and method
Dates, venue, innings scores, overs, margins and individual figures come from ESPNcricinfo scorecards and tournament records for the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup, checked against the official Group B table. The squad is the fifteen India named, with Rahul Dravid as captain, Yuvraj Singh as vice-captain and MS Dhoni as first-choice wicketkeeper; Dinesh Karthik, Irfan Pathan and S. Sreesanth did not play.
The batting and bowling tables list every India player who batted or bowled, with no qualification threshold, because across three matches a threshold would remove most of the squad. Averages, strike rates and economy rates are as published and are not adjusted for the Bermuda match, which distorts several of them upward.
The run and wicket splits in the closing section were computed by adding published team scores and individual aggregates: the 789-run figure is the sum of India's three team totals and includes extras, while the 607-run figure for the top five is from individual aggregates and excludes them. The statement that 413 for 5 was the highest World Cup total refers to March 2007 and is dated accordingly, with the later record noted. Comments on selection are interpretation rather than fact and are presented as such. Figures were re-checked in August 2026.