Cup storm in tag lines and jingles

The 1996 World Cup will be remembered for many things: three countries hosting it, an India-Pakistan team touring Sri Lanka, Romesh Kaluwitharana and Sanath Jayasuriya starting in fifth gear, bottles and bedlam at Eden Gardens, Sri Lanka emerging champions and the punchline, "Nothing official about it."

- Dhiman Sarkar

The Pepsi television commercials ran through the tournament in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. They featured Courtney Walsh, Ian Bishop, Mohammed Azharuddin defying gravity, Sachin Tendulkar being himself, Dominic Cork doing a spaghetti Western act and umpire Dickie Bird, then retired from ODIs, in a bench wig. Coca Cola was the official partner, having paid, according to some reports, 10 crore, but you can't bring the tournament back to life without talking about how Pepsi ambushed them.

It that was unorthodox, so was the campaign in 2011 but this time as official sponsors. "Change the game" was Pepsi's theme with one of the commercials showing MS Dhoni learning to play the helicopter shot - that sure has aged well given how the World Cup was won at the Wankhede.

Kevin Pietersen training to swivel for the switch hit by loading watermelons on a truck, Tillakaratne Dilshan learning to scoop with a sari and umpire Billy Bowden figuring out his "crooked finger of doom" in India were also part of the campaign. Sandeep Singh Arora, executive vice-president, marketing, Cola, PepsiCo India, was quoted as saying in campaigninidia.in that, "we wanted to also be called the official sponsor of everything that is unorthodox about the sport."