World Cup 2019: Top five anticlimactic moments of the tournament
World Cup 2019 contained all the elements that a big-time sporting event should have. Although rain washed out some interesting encounters, it was still impressive as a tournament because of the quality of the matches played. Many insurmountable records got broken, and some stars attained superstardom.
The pre-tournament favorites England looked impressive throughout the tournament. They finally did the impossible and won the World Cup for the first time in history. The maiden World Cup triumph meant a happy ending for England. However, for the other teams, it was anti-climatic at some stage or the other.
The four-year gap between World Cup tournaments adds extreme importance to it, besides the participation of every top team in the world. The intensity of the tournament always ensures an emotional rollercoaster for the viewers and the players. As there are passionate fans backing every participating team, the outcome always is unexpected for some of them.
Here are five such anticlimaxes from this tournament.
#5 A tournament filled with torment for South Africa
The South African team, despite being favorites for almost every World Cup edition, haven't crack the winning code and have been labelled as "chokers" for often crashing out in inexplicable ways. Thus, the Proteas entered this World Cup with heavy motivations to lift the trophy and end their silverware drought.
The squad looked strong on paper with in-form match winners such as Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir, Kagiso Rabada and Dale Steyn among the rest. However, injuries and some other negative factors ravaged them. Steyn could not play because of an injury sustained in the IPL.
Then the rumors of the team management's refusal to accept AB de Villiers’ offer to participate in the competition seemingly hurt their morale after some poor initial matches.
A failure to win any of their first four opening games ended their hopes of a semi-final berth. Although there were a handful of positives to take out from this tournament, it was an awful one for the Proteas and something they and their fans would try hard to forget.
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