CWC History: Five teams with the most number of semi-final appearances
We are less than 24 hours away from the 12th edition of ICC Cricket World Cup. The host nation England will take on South Africa in the tournament opener. This year’s edition will be an open tournament owing to the nature of the format.
After 20 long years, England will host the tournament for the first time since the 1999 edition. As expected, England and India will start the competition as heavy favorites. Teams like West Indies, New Zealand, and South Africa will be the ‘dark horses.’ Meanwhile, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan can surprise everyone by reaching the semi-finals. At the same time, Australia can spring a surprise by winning the World Cup for a record sixth time.
With the new format looks daunting, reaching the semi-finals of this edition itself will be a massive achievement because of the quality of the teams. Now, let us look at five teams who have reached the semi-finals most number of times in the history of the competition.
#5 England (5)
England, the nation who invented the great game of cricket, is yet to win their first World Cup trophy. In the 11 editions of the tournament, England has reached the semi-finals only five times. Interestingly, all those successes came at the first five editions.
In the inaugural edition and the 1983 edition, they reached the semi-finals. However, in the remaining three tournaments, they finished as runners-up. In particular, their 1992 World Cup final against Pakistan was a close contest. Though the run chase was under England’s control, an over from Wasim Akram turned the entire context of the game.
After the 1992 World Cup, England barely tasted any incredible success in the mega tournament. They did not even cross the group stage three times (1999, 2003, and 2015). Among those three editions, 1999 edition was the most horrible tournament as England was the host nation.
England’s painful exit in the 2015 World Cup completely changed the entire landscape of limited-overs norms in England. Eoin Morgan’s fearless lads are the pioneers of the modern age ODI cricket. The hard-hitting, explosive nature of England batsmen has recently raised speculation about the possibility of 500 in this World Cup.
After four years of tremendous hard work, it is time for Morgan’s boys to relish their ultimate goal and rewrite the history books in this World Cup.