Johannesburg: Sachin Tendulkar, who was named the player-of-the-tournament even before the final match was played, said he was glad to have won the honour but would have been much happier if his team had defeated Australia to win the championship. "It's an honour to be named the best player of the World Cup, but I would have been happier if India had won the title," Tendulkar said after receiving the Rs 30 lakh (approx) trophy from legendary West Indies all rounder Sir Garfield Sobers. Tendulkar, who was out after scoring just four runs on Sunday, finished with 673 runs in the tournament, a record for any World Cup. He had earned 14 points in the voting system - under which the match referees awarded three points to the man-of- the-match, two to the second best and one to the third best - before the start of Sunday's match. Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly was four points behind Tendulkar while Sri Lanka's Chaminda Vaas was five points adrift. Tendulkar was disappointed with the way his side caved in on Sunday against the Australians. "It was just one of those off days when nothing went right for us. We had a bad start and the pressure kept building," he said. But Ali Bacher, executive director of 2003 World Cup, was all praise for him. "We wanted this to be the best World Cup ever, and Sachin's brilliant batting has helped the tournament captivate many millions of people around the cricketing world. He thoroughly deserves this accolade," Bacher said. Extras:
We deserved to win the World Cup: Ponting

Tags: cricket, individual performance, brilliances, gavaskar, frank worrell, rohan b kanhali, kapil dev, malcolm marshall, s p gupte, a l valentine, n d hirwani, a m e roberts, innings, bowling, match, best.