Spectacular hitting dominated the tournament, most notably when South Africa's Herschelle Gibbs became the first man in ODI history to hit six sixes in one over against the Netherlands, Matthew Hayden of Australia scored the fastest hundred in CWC history off 66 balls against South Africa and New Zealand's Brendon McCullum's 50 off 20 balls against Canada was also a record.

India made a record team score in a CWC, with 413 against Bermuda, the Australia-South Africa group match was the highest match aggregate in CWC history and the 18 sixes in the South Africa-Netherlands match was also an ODI record.

There were also moments of individual brilliance with the ball, with Lasith Malinga becoming the first to take four wickets in four balls in an ODI and the fifth player to take a CWC hat-trick.

Other winners of the event include West Indies (1975, 1979), India (1983), Pakistan (1992) and Sri Lanka (1996). Australia also captured the title in 1987.

The next ICC Cricket World Cup will be staged in the Asian subcontinent in 2011.