Three biggest Indian cricket defeats of my time

I have been an ardent cricket fan ever since I remember. I sill have faint memories of 1987 World Cup Semi Final defeat against England. India had a target of 255 to win and top order misfired. Flash forward twenty years, scene was little different, it wasn’t a semi final but it was a knock out match, equally important. There was again a target of 255 and top order collapsed, World Cup 2007 group match defeat against Sri Lanka was equally devastating for fans.

Now when emotions have dried a bit and reality seems to be sinking in, I got thinking about defeats those left me completely heart-broken as an Indian cricket fan. Considering the way Indian team plays there is no dearth of defeats but to make it an effortful exercise I thought I will restrict myself to top three those come to my mind. Factors those went in evaluating these defeats were significance of lost match, level of hope, team’s form and emotional letdown these defeats caused, and finally, this is based on the way I look at Cricket. It was tricky to pick just three and here are the unlucky ones:

3. India v Sri Lanka in group match of World Cup 2007 at Queen's Park Oval, Trinidad on 23 March, 2007

Well…this one is too recent and need no elaboration :-(

2. India v Sri Lanka in Semi Finals of World Cup 1996 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on 13 March 1996,

This was an emotional defeat on a crumbling home pitch, probably too much to digest after winning an epic against Pakistan in Quarter Finals. An on course run chase crashed all too sudden and crying Kambli probably made a lot many others cry too.

1. India v Australia in Final of World cup 2003 at Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg on 23 March, 2003

This one scores highly as I think this Indian team was the best we have ever got in a World Cup. They were playing amazingly well as a team and boy who can forget those very frequent huddles. But to Australia they looked almost invincible. To me this was our most convincing performance in World Cup. However in Finals over spirited Zaheer and a fourteen ball first over gave away Australia an early advantage and India never recovered from that point onwards. Honestly I still had some hope while we started chasing but Sachin’s departure sealed the coffin. Losing a World Cup Final leaves that frustrating feeling, too close but yet too far.

There are many more which came close to these three, Javed Miandad’s last ball six in Sharjah cup in 1986 was a very close entry to this list. Then 1987 World Cup Semi Final defeat against England was again a big blow. One more close competitor will be defeat to Pakistan at Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium in April 2005 when India lost last match of six match series. India had a lead of 2-0 and lost four matches in row to lose series by 4-2. Fourth defeat at Kotla was India's biggest defeat in terms of runs at home that time and was disrupted by disappointed fans throwing bottles on the field. If I recall correctly, this match was watched by Vajpayee and Musharraf, huh, what a shameful let down that was.

From a Cricket perspective, these top three humiliating defeats occurred when we were to chase a target, batting literally collapsed and we lost convincingly. But I also noticed some more patterns in my top three ranked Indian cricket defeats. All were in World Cup, boy I expect too much out of this carnival every time. All were in month of March, either I watch too much Cricket in March or may be March is unlucky month. Two of these defeats occurred on March 23rd, where the hell are those astrologers who predicted India’s win over Sri Lanka this time in all morning news shows?