10 players who are top performers in World Cup knockout stages

No tournament gets into serious business unless it moves on to the knock-out stages. Viewership picks up, so does the intensity – enormous pressure mounts on the players’ shoulders, so on and so forth. A slip off from one's fingers, one lose delivery or an uncanny edge off the bat will be blown up into unimaginable proportions and may rewrite a player’s destiny the wrong way.Likewise, performances speak volumes if a player manages to shine on the given day during this phase. More so, this is the ideal platform for champions to emerge. All that said, only few manage to be on the better side of this divide.World Cup 2015 has graduated on to the quarter-final round, leaving only the best 8 teams to battle it out for glory. With the knock-outs kicking off from Wednesday, from what history reveals to us, here’s a list of champions who have most often risen to the occasion during the knock-out phases of cricket’s showpiece tournament:Note: Players who have played a minimum of 5 ICC tournaments have only been considered.

#10 Muttiah Muralitharan

With an infectious smile and an indecipherable bowling technique, Muralitharan ruled cricket’s bowling department for the greater part of his career. He has over 1300 wickets – from ODIs and Tests – to his name, making him the most successful bowler in all of the game’s history.

This champion off-spinner from Sri Lanka played a pivotal role in the team’s ascent in world cricket. In the crucial quarter-final fixture of 1996 against England played in the sub-continent, Murali bowled a meticulous spell restricting the opposition to a chaseable total which eventually set up the route for Sri Lanka’s first and only yet World Cup glory.

He splendidly ripped through the Kiwi batting lineup in the 2007 World Cup semi final played in the Caribbean, managing figures of 4/31.