When Underdogs Roared – Five of Cricket’s Biggest Upsets

Like in any sport, teams that are not favored to win sometimes do. In cricket, many factors can significantly impact a match’s outcome, such as match format, pitch conditions, the weather, etc. For example, upsets are more likely in limited-over formats because these are shorter games, and favorites do not have the same opportunities they would in other formats to bounce back and recover from mistakes made.

Moreover, cricket’s reliance on a blend of individual brilliance and team chemistry makes it comparable to football in some ways, as team form and field conditions can also play a dramatic role in match results. Below, we tell you about five unexpected wins in India’s favorite pastime that amazed cricketing fans around the globe, and we give you the odds bookies set on them transpiring.

India vs. West Indies 1983 World Cup Final

Without argument, the most talked about underdog win in the sport of cricket occurred in the final match of the 1983 Prudential World Cup held in Lord’s Ground in St John Woods, England, in front of almost twenty-five thousand fans. The West Indies were massive favorites going into the event, as they had won the previous two competitions. India was making its debut at such a later stage and was given sixty-six to one odds at the beginning of the competition to go all the way in it. They managed to beat England in the semi-finals by six wickets, but no one expected them to triumph over the powerful West Indies in their initial showing at a World Cup final, the first such appearance by an Asian nation in the contest. Yet, they did, by a score of one hundred and eighty-three to one hundred and forty.

As expected, Bollywood immortalized this stunning win in a biographic drama called 83, directed by Kabir Khan, which got released in 2021. It depicts India’s shocking 1983 World Cup win, with its squad led by Kapil Dev, thought of by many as the best all-rounders ever.

Ireland Beats England – 2011 World Cup

Cricket is not substantially popular in the Land of Saints and Scholars, as estimates put the number of Irish playing it around fifty thousand. The sport, in its modern form, was introduced to the Éire in the 19th century, with the first official match on Irish soil taking place in 1855. At the start of the 2010s, Ireland was thought of as one of the strongest Associate Nations, regularly dominating other Associate teams. Before the 2011 win over England, they sent shockwaves throughout the cricketing world in 2007 when they beat fourth-ranked (at the time) Pakistan by three wickets on Saint Patrick’s Day in their inaugural World Cup showing.

Four years later, Ireland took on England at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore at the 2011 Cricket World Cup, again winning by three wickets, with then Gloucestershire all-rounder Kevin O’Brien hitting World Cup history’s fastest century. According to the UK paper – The Mirror, the Irish were given as high as four hundred to one odds over the overwhelming favorited England after the Three Lions easily steamrolled the Netherlands and then tied with host nation India in a dramatic match.

Zimbabwe’s Upset Against Australia – 1983 World Cup

Zimbabwe, previously known as Rhodesia, had its first World Cup campaign in 1983, in which this African nation lost five of its six matches. However, their sole win in the competition was an astonishing one that few saw coming, as Zimbabwe managed to astound Australia in the group stages of the 1983 World Cup.

Per some historians, Zimbabwe was a massive long shot to win the Cup, as a five hundred to one outsider, and going by some unofficial reports, they were given somewhere between fifty to one and sixty to one odds to defeat Australia, seen as one of the better teams in the tournament. Yet, they did; Duncan Fletcher’s unbeaten sixty-nine anchored Zimbabwe’s innings, which earned him the Player of the Match honors. His all-around brilliance is credited as turning the contest in Zimbabwe’s favor and leading to their win, along with Australia, led by Kim Hughes, likely sizably underestimating their opponents, given their low experience at the international cricket stage.

Bangladesh vs. Australia – 2005 Natwest Tri-Series

Australia again makes the list in what many call the most eye-brow-raising win in limited overs cricket history, which occurred at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff in June 2005. Bangladesh won by five wickets in a match, and they came in as the team with the worst ODI record at the time, marking only nine wins in one hundred and seven games. Hence, they were seen as having no chance against the Australians. Going by our research for this piece of content, we found a 2005 Age article, an Australian medium, that cited that one English bookmaker gave Bangladesh thirty-three to one odds for winning.

Per reports, Bangladesh began playing cautiously in the contest after losing the toss. Mohammad Ashraful, the team’s middle-order batsman, was noted as the squad’s hero in their historic win, as he anchored the innings with a brilliant one hundred off one hundred and one balls. He later went on to captain his national team in thirteen Tests between 2007 and 2009, and in this jaw-dropping upset, he got loads of help from then-captain Habibul Bashar, Bangladesh’s top-order batsman.

Afghanistan Stuns England – World Cup 2023

On October 15th, Afghanistan pulled off what got called an upset of immense proportions as they beat England by sixty-nine runs in Delhi in the ICC Cricket World Cup. The shocking win ended Afghanistan’s fourteen-match streak of losses in the World Cup, and it marked the initial time England had lost eight wickets to spin in the tournament. Going by data supplied by Oddspedia, England was given an 87.49% implied probability of winning. But, even though the odds were not set as dramatically as some of our previously discussed underdog wins, that should not fool anyone into thinking that this win was not a super staggering occurrence.

Pundits cited Afghanistan’s aggressive batting as the secret sauce to their triumph, with most experts pointing to Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Ikram Ali Khil’s boundaries late in the innings as greatly contributing to Afghanistan’s unlikely victory.

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