Brothers in arms at World Cup

Sharing the same passion for the game and the same surnames, there are five sets of brothers in this World Cup.

NEW DEHLI: Sharing the same passion for the game and the same surnames, there are five sets of brothers looking to claim a slice of cricketing history at the World Cup.

Australia's twins Steve and Mark Waugh were part of Australia's 1999 World Cup winning squad, a feat many brothers here must be wishing to emulate.

This edition of the showpiece event will see Nathan and Brendon McCullum turn out for New Zealand; Kamran and Umar Akmal for Pakistan and Niall and Kevin O'Brien for Ireland.

Kenya boasts of two sets of brothers in David and Collins Obuya and Shem and James Ngoche. West Indies will have half-brothers Dwayne and Darren Bravo perking each other up.

Darren paid tribute to Dwayne, who is older by five years and vastly more experienced.

"He has played in all different formats of the game, in all different parts of the world and he always gives me encouragement," 22-year-old Darren told www.cricinfo.com.

"He works out a game plan quite nicely and he tends to make it a bit easy for me and I really appreciate that. Dwayne is always willing to giving me 100 percent support and I can't ask for anything but that."

If injury and selection decisions had not got in the way, there would have been two more sets of brothers at the tournament.

India's explosive batsman Yusuf Pathan won't have the younger Irfan for company while Australian David Hussey will be without the more experienced older brother Mike.

Irfan made his debut before Yusuf but was dropped from the team in 2009 for poor form and fitness.

Mike Hussey failed to recover from a hamstring injury in time for the World Cup.

A peek into the history of the game shows Australia have a knack of producing a number of cricketing brothers.

Two of them represented Australia in the very first international Test match, played between England and Australia in 1877.

Dave Gregory, who captained the side, and his brother Ned both played in that match, although neither enjoyed a long career. Instead, that distinction went to David's son, Sydney Gregory, who went on to play 58 Tests.

Greg and Ian Chappell played for the great Australian team of the 1970s and ended their careers with impressive statistics.