London, Feb. 22: The day India play their last World Cup group game, against Zimbabwe in Auckland, Mahatma Gandhi will come out to bat a hemisphere away.

A statue of the Indian leader will be unveiled at Parliament Square in London on March 14, Prime Minister David Cameron today said in a statement.

The British government declined to say who will do the honours though there are suggestions that instead of Narendra Modi, as had been hoped for, it might be Arun Jaitley.

"Plans are still being formed around this, so we cannot confirm which dignitaries are attending at this stage," a spokeswoman for the department of culture, media and sport said.

It is this ministry that has taken the lead in commissioning a well-known British sculptor, Philip Jackson, to make the bronze statue and appointing Labour peer Meghnad Desai to raise £1m to pay for it, which he has now done.

The last bit of money has come from steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, who has given £100,000 to add to the £25,000 from the board of Infosys, chaired by K.V. Kamath, at the behest of one of the company's founders, N.R. Narayana Murthy. Gandhi's statue will be the eleventh and last in Parliament Square, completing what may be considered a rather illustrious cricket team.

If he is a right-handed batsman facing the House of Commons and Big Ben, Gandhi will have Nelson Mandela close in at point, and will see the back of Winston Churchill - who wanted him "bound hand and foot and then trampled on by an enormous elephant" - at long on. Abraham Lincoln is wicketkeeper.

Guarding midwicket will be a familiar face from Gandhi's South Africa days - adversary-cum-admirer Jan Smuts, who later became Prime Minister of his country.

Gandhi will be the only one in the square not to have been either a President or a Prime Minister.

The unveiling "will be the focal point for the commemoration this summer of the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's return to India from South Africa to start the struggle for self-rule".

"Mahatma Gandhi is an inspiration," Cameron said in a formal statement. "His approach of non-violence will resonate forever as a positive legacy - not just for the UK and India but the world over."

He added: "He was a man of great insight and many of his observations remain as fresh and relevant today as when he first made them. That we should be the change we wish to see in the world is timeless advice, well worth following ."

Cameron, who has been to India four times, including three times as Prime Minister, will hope to be returned to power in the general election on May 7 - hopefully with the support of Indian-origin voters.

"Our ties with India have remained close throughout history and continue to go from strength to strength - through mutual respect as equals, through cooperation, trade and of course through the one-and-a-half-million Indian diaspora living in Britain today who bring our two nations closer, to the benefit of both," the Prime Minister added.

Sajid Javid, who chairs the Gandhi statue special advisory board, said: "Gandhi is one of the most inspirational figures in history and the statue will be a fitting symbol to his teachings of non-violent, peaceful protests ." He thanked Desai and recognised the work of the Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust "for raising the funds to make this happen".

Priti Patel, exchequer secretary to the treasury and appointed UK Indian diaspora champion by Cameron, declared: "The statue of Gandhi will be an incredible symbol of democracy and celebrate the life of a man of true greatness." Desai revealed that "generous donors have contributed sums from a pound up to hundreds of thousands of pounds from the UK, India and around the world". "On behalf of the Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust we thank all who made it possible for us to exceed our target of a million pounds within six months. As Gandhi said, 'If the cause is right the means will come'," Desai said.

"It is great that there will be a monument honouring Gandhi in Parliament Square in London, which was one of his favourite cities. He is the first Indian and the only person honoured with a statue in the Square who never held public office."

Other than Churchill, Mandela, Smuts and Lincoln, the occupants of the square are David Lloyd George, the 3rd Viscount Palmerston, the 14th Earl of Derby, Benjamin Disraeli, Sir Robert Peel and George Canning. All were Prime Ministers of Britain.