2011 Cricket World Cup Quotes

As far as the World Cup is concerned, it is a process. We don't want to jump to the 50th floor straight away. We must start on the ground floor. ~ Sachin Tendulkar

No cricket should be played for at least a month anywhere in the world after a World Cup. ~ Kapil Dev

In 2011 India's Test team was crowned as world cricket's leading side for the first time in its history. The foundations for this global domination can be traced to a decade earlier, when a career-defining performance by VVS Laxman helped to turn a whole series on its head as India, in the face of a seemingly unassailable deficit, staged an unbelievable recovery to go on and overpower what many considered to be the finest cricket team ever assembled. ~ Dave Wilson

Rob Green needed to get the long barrier out, didn't he? ~ James Anderson

A chance, as a coach, to take a team to the World Cup finals is probably as high up the tree as it gets, certainly with one-day cricket. ~ Andy Pick

Every few years, in the world of sport, someone ascends to the most rarefied of all levels - the one at which it becomes news not when they win, but when they lose. It must have been like that in the early Fifties, when a tubby Italian called Alberto Ascari was stitching together nine Grand Prix wins in a row, a record not even Fangio, Clark or Senna could match. Or when the great Real Madrid side of Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas won the first five European Cup finals, between 1956 and 1960. Or when Martina Navratilova dominated Wimbledon's Centre Court, winning nine ladies' singles titles in thirteen years. The current Australian cricket team is in just such a run at present, having just completed nine consecutive victories, putting them four wins away from establishing an all-time record. And then there is Tiger Woods. ~ Richard Williams

Would that cricketers had better lines, or at least that their most famous were not also their tritest or most banal. 'This thing can be done,' said Fred Spofforth in 1882. 'We'll get 'em in singles,' George Hirst did not say twenty years later. 'You guys are history,' growled Devon Malcolm in 1994. 'You've just dropped the World Cup,' Steve Waugh may have crowed in 1999. At least two of these could have been put into the mouth of Arnold Schwarzenegger. ~ Rodney Ulyate

I feel that World Cup cricket should be played like football in which all the 160 countries take part. If only a handful of countries are going to keep on playing in the World Cup without making the game popular, I will be a sad man. ~ Kapil Dev

My goals are for the U.S. team to get to the second round of the World Cup and to win a championship here in the U.S. with my club team the Columbus Crew. ~ Brian McBride

The World Cup only comes around once every four years and is the absolute pinnacle of our sport. It is something we dream about as players. It is a reason why many of us started playing this game. I know myself, my teammates will be focused on what's ahead and what's at stake. ~ Jozy Altidore

There was a tremendous amount of disappointment in missing the World Cup finals in 1998, so they're getting excited about this one and I really think we could do well in the Far East. ~ Robbie Keane

Head coach of the England team demands management skills that Brian does not have. We had a head coach who wanted one thing, other coaches who wanted other things. The players hadn't a clue what was going on. Somehow we'd managed to turn our World Cup campaign into a Monty Python sketch - called The Life of Brian. ~ Lawrence Dallaglio

The best players in the world are playing to make history. There are only four tournaments you can win to make history, and TPC (The Players Championship) is not one of them. And neither are those world events. And you're not going to make history winning some kind of FedEx Cup. ~ Paul Azinger

I wasn't like, boo hoo, Bin Laden's dead, but I wasn't jumping. America's a very nationalistic country, and in episodes like that of his death, it becomes jingoism. People are drinking, dancing in the street, chanting USA like they're at the World Cup, like they won it ... It's sick that we turned it into a sporting event. ~ Jeremy Scahill

For the record, the vuvuzela is not my enemy - and I even have, for reasons of self-defence installed a mini-vuvu with surprisingly powerful performance levels around my neck - though I miss hearing the crescendo of noise from the crowd that should accompany a promising attack on goal or a goal itself. Instead, of course, there is the monotone drone - a constant that belies the ebbs and flows of a game. ~ Richard Calland

The World Cup was a huge frustration because I had prepared really hard for it. But in the World Cup there is no formula, no recipe for success. ~ Kaka

Our journey has taken 21 players but our goal is still the same, to win the World Cup. ~ Heather O'Reilly

When we play at the World Cup, any African will back any African team. Because we want to hear the different approach to African football. We want to hear that Africans can do well, and Africans do well. ~ Yaya Toure

YOU KNOW AS A PLAYER THAT YOU WON'T HAVE MANY OPPORTUNITIES TO PLAY IN WORLD CUPS - SO YOU HAVE TO TAKE THEM WHEN YOU CAN. ~ Lionel Messi

I don't think any book of mine will ever come as close to pure fantasy as 'A Heaven of Others.' I'll never again set a book in a world or after-world in which it's impossible to buy a cup of coffee or take an undisturbed afternoon nap. ~ Joshua Cohen

Some have said it is the easiest group at the World Cup, but we realize it won't be like that. Germany are a tremendous side, but to be honest I don't know much about Cameroon and Saudi Arabia. ~ Robbie Keane

That instead of running directly back to your assigned world and your work – and your prince – you're staying in the Library for long enough to have coffee. And not just a cup, but a whole pot. Has it been a bad few days? ~ Genevieve Cogman

The '54 World Cup was the first time the people got the recognition back after the second World War and felt like they are proud of something you know it brought people back together and you know now we can keep our heads up again. ~ Jurgen Klinsmann

Candles blazing, the people closet to me in the world sang "Happy Birthday," and I grinned like a fool and tried not to cry because it was so wonderful and so disarming - almost like being transported back to a moment in childhood that I had not actually lived through. I blew out the candles and everyone cheered. "Thank you all for being here with me," I said, too choked up to manage more. It is so easy to go through your days stewing about someone stealing your parking spot without giving the same attention to your child's arms around your neck, to grumble about the ever-increasing cost of groceries without realizing just how good it is have warm toast and a fresh cup of coffee while sitting across from the one you love. ~ Camille Pagan

I crossed paths with a horse that happened to change my life. That horse is Game On Dude, and what a horse! He's a soldier. Together we traveled the world. We won the Santa Anita Big Cap, Goodwood, almost won the Breeder's Cup Classic; we won the San Antonio, Hollywood Gold Cup and the Californian. ~ Chantal Sutherland

We knew that if we had to win the World Cup, the defensive side of the game had to be better, which means bowlers will have to bowl tight and we will have to field better. ~ Ricky Ponting

There is hardly a place in New York that you can't walk a block and a half and get a cup of coffee. Believe me, I've been all over the world. There's no place like that but New York City. ~ Patti Smith

If you want to win the World Cup, you need to play against the best national teams in the world. ~ Javier Hernandez

It might seem to you that living in the woods on a riverbank would remove you from the modern world. But not if the river is navigable, as ours is. On pretty weekends in the summer, this riverbank is the very verge of the modern world. It is a seat in the front row, you might say. On those weekends, the river is disquieted from morning to night by people resting from their work.
This resting involves traveling at great speed, first on the road and then on the river. The people are in an emergency to relax. They long for the peace and quiet of the great outdoors. Their eyes are hungry for the scenes of nature. They go very fast in their boats. They stir the river like a spoon in a cup of coffee. They play their radios loud enough to hear above the noise of their motors. They look neither left nor right. They don't slow down for - or maybe even see - an old man in a rowboat raising his lines...
I watch and I wonder and I think. I think of the old slavery, and of the way The Economy has now improved upon it. The new slavery has improved upon the old by giving the new slaves the illusion that they are free. The Economy does not take people's freedom by force, which would be against its principles, for it is very humane. It buys their freedom, pays for it, and then persuades its money back again with shoddy goods and the promise of freedom. ~ Wendell Berry

Prose Poems from my book SPAN
OBSERVATION
So, we may not be able to explain the world. Not exactly. But we can accept it, and love it. We can turn our faces to the light and examine the minutest details simply for the sake of it. We can live lives of joy and purpose. We are all part of one whole. Take comfort in this. Almost every one of us is capable of holding a cup to another's lips without our hands shaking. ~ Jay Woodman

There's a lot of good things about England, but I don't want to tell you too many of them. ~ Michael Clarke

Consequently, I won just about everything I set out to win, everything bar the World Cup, of course. But even now, I don't regret that, because I was part of a team which twice reached the semi-finals. ~ Michel Patini

The crowd is wonderful. There is always a superb atmosphere in the finish area. It's good for the World Cup. I missed it a lot when I had to rest and it's so nice to be back here. ~ Hermann Maier

Honscheid came over from West Germany for the first Hawaiian World Cup and discovered jumping, which was new to him, although Mike Horgan and I were jumping in 1974 and 1975. There ~ Eric Von Hippel

While the burning fish is tracing his arc
near the cypress, beneath the highest blue of all,
and the blind boy flies away in the white stone,
and the ivory poem of the green cicada
beats and reverberates in the elm,
let us give honor to the Lord
the black mark of his good hand
who has arranged for silence in all this noise.
Honor to the god of distance and of absence,
ff the anchor in the sea - the open sea ...
He frees us from the world - it's everywhere
he opens roads for us to walk on.
With our cup of darkness filled to the brim,
with our heart that always knows some hunger,
let us give honor to the Lord who created the zero
and carved our thought out of the block of faith. ~ Antonio Machado