5 revenge matches at the World Cup
Revenge is harming someone who previously hurt you. In this context, it is basically knocking a team out at the next chance, after being knocked out by them. What can give a team more satisfaction than this? It was that team after all which ended or played a part in ending the world cup hopes last time.Wouldn’t you just love it if your team beat another team that dished your team a very disappointing loss in the past?Let us look at 5 such revenge matches:
#1 England vs India: 1983 --> 1987
India was on the receiving end of this one.
In the 1983 World Cup held in England, India, who were at odds of 66/1 to win the World Cup, came up with a terrific performance to lift the trophy. They were up against a very strong England side in the semifinals. England won the toss and chose to bat, But, the English batsmen weren’t up to the task. They mistimed too many balls and the disciplined Indian bowling didn’t help their cause. They scored a modest 213 all out in 60 overs. Kapil Dev scalped 3 wickets and Mohinder Amarnath and Roger Binny picked up 2 wickets each. India won the match comprehensively aided by half centuries from Yashpal Sharma and Sandeep Patil.
The next time these two teams met was in the same stage of the 1987 World Cup in Mumbai. India won the toss and chose to field. They were rewarded with 2 batsmen falling cheaply and expected the England batting to collapse. But, what followed was an onslaught from Graham Gooch (115) and Mike Gatting (56). England posted a commendable score of 254/6 in 50 overs. After a bad start, Azharuddin walked in and scored an aggressive 64 (74) and brought India back into the match. But, India lost their last 5 wickets for just 15 runs and ended up losing the match by 36 runs.
England had the last laugh.