Time to Rewind-Some great WC classics
World cup has always had it's share of classic matches with some last over victories and defeats going all the way to the final ball. It has been heartbreaking moment for many fans and euphoria for the winning teams.
Let me recap some of these memorable classic matches:
It was Duncan Fletcher(current England coach) with a all round effort of unbeaten 69 and four wickets shocking the Aussie giants who were tournament favorites by 13 runs and Australia never recovered from this loss and finished third in their round robin group. Classic match where Duncan Fletcher used his all his captaincy skills to rein in the Aussies.
This was the match which lead the Caribbeans to believe that they can also excel in ODI form of the game and can win the cup. Known for being big hitters with very little patience and fiery fast bowlers this match brought out the deep batting strengths of the WIndies and their capability to adopt to the situation which was the key. Chasing 267 of 60 overs and reeling at 203 for 9 with the Sultan of swing' Sarfraz Nawaz' in full swing some how the last wicket pair of Murray and Roberts manged to push and prod 64 priceless runs winning in the fourth ball of the last over and the whole of the Pakistani supporters were virtually in tears knowing that they had lost a golden chance to upset the golden team of the 70's in a premier tournament
Probably the best WC match till date where the South African bowlers lead by Donald and Shaun Pollock who is still playing they decimated the Aussies to a low total of 213 in the semi finals and the SA victory was a formality. However One man called Shane Warne came in to the match with 4 deadly wickets in two spells and in spite of a fierce heroic onslaught by Lance Klusner the match was tied with a last over run out of Alan Donald as he backed up too far. Aussies qualified for the final since they had beaten SA in the preliminaries
It was the first time India was hosting the WC and expectations were high as usual and Kapil was the captain for India. Chasing 270 in MAC stadium in Chennai was gettable and the local hero Srikanth and sixer Sidhu gave a flying start after Sunny had scored a quick 37 and Sidhu had 5 sixes in his 73 of 79 balls. However the tail crumbled as usual and Border brought on Steven waugh for the last over with just 2 to be scored. However Waugh frustrated the rookie Maninder Singh for four balls and got him out to the penultimate ball with the little wicket keeper Kiran more left stranded in the other end and India lost by a run. Kapil's decision to bowl first when he had two good spinners and Border's decision to get Waugh in spite of having a regular bowler O'Donnel with a over left were two extreme decisions which turned the result of the match and probably gave Australia their first world cup
Some more in the next episode
RK
posted by RK at 8:09 AM
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