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Ranking the 10 most iconic World Cup moments

Stories involving Jonty Rhodes, Sachin Tendulkar, South Africa's bad luck in knockout games feature in this list.
Stories involving Jonty Rhodes, Sachin Tendulkar, South Africa's bad luck in knockout games feature in this list.

From era-defining upsets to drug scandals, the Cricket World Cup has given us some unforgettable moments over the years. Picking the top 10, and then ranking them was a difficult task. As mere fans of the sport, some moments have made us cry while some have given us immense joy. "The World Cup is a very important way to measure the good players and the great ones. It is a test of a great player."- Pele.

The list includes some brilliant individual performances along with some unforgettable incidents during and after the matches.

Of course, there are some honourable mentions for those moments who were not able to make the cut. Somehow, there was no place for Gibbs dropping the 1999 World Cup incident, Ponting's brilliance in the 2003 finals and Chirs Gayle's double ton in 2015 in this list.

On that note, let us relive 10 of the most iconic moments from the Cricket World Cup history.


#10 Jonty Rhodes, Inzamam, and the 'Superman' run out (1992)

A moment of World Cup brilliance.
A moment of World Cup brilliance.

The 1992 World Cup was South Africa's maiden World Cup. They had started off their campaign brilliantly by defeating hosts Australia. This victory was followed by defeats against New Zealand and Srilanka.

In their next match, they were restricted to 211 by Pakistan and all of a sudden South Africa's World Cup dreams were fading away. The silly rain rule gave some hope to South Africa as now Pakistan needed 119 runs off 14 overs with eight wickets in hand. Inzamam held Pakistan's key and was playing well on 48 from 44 deliveries.

Moment

In the 31st over, Inzamam failed to connect and the ball rolled from his pad towards backward point. Inzamam started running for a leg bye, only to get a 'no' call from Imran Khan, the non-striker.

Inzamam on turning saw Jonty sprinting towards his stumps and before Inzamam could make it into the crease, Jonty with the ball in this right-hand thew himself at the stumps to dismiss Inzamam, and give us the greatest World Cup run out ever. South Africa went on to win the game by 20 runs.

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