Every tournament guarantees some glorious moments; some wonderful sixes, great motions of fielding, epic spell of bowling and so on. However, the matches that don't fade away, just like the Axe Signature line of body perfumes, are often the small fish beating the whale.
Over the course of history, there hasn’t been a single tournament where a major upset didn’t occur just like the fable where David beat Goliath.
Be it the FIFA World Cup or the cricket World Cup, upsets always find their way through to a tournament. A total of 6 World T20 tournaments that have been played and in each one of them, a team has beaten another one despite the odds being against it.
And here are 5 of the biggest upsets in World T20:
Zimbabwe v Australia – World T20 2007
This has to go down as one of the biggest upsets in not only the history of World Cup T20, but in cricket altogether.
In the inaugural edition of the World T20, Australia were firm favourites to go all the way and win it. However, when Zimbabwe got the better of them in Cape Town, itstunned the whole world.
Batting first, Australia could manage only 138 thanks to helpful knocks from Andrew Symonds and Brad Hodge. Despite the small target, people expected Australia todefend it, but a brilliant Brendan Taylor had something else in mind.
His 45-ball 60 engineered a great win against the Kangaroos, earning plaudits for himself and his team and giving hope the underdogs.
Bangladesh v Hong Kong - World T20 2014
By now, Bangladesh were a formidable team and not just another pushover. Bangladesh were playing at home against an associate nation and were batting at 85-3 with just 11 overs played. However, what followed next completely rocked the Tigers.
In a major collapse, the Bangladeshis lost 7 wickets in the space of 6 overs and scored just 23 runs in the process. Nadeem starred with the ball with outstanding figures of 4-21.
And Hong Kong just got over the line. Wickets kept tumbling for them, but they slowly and steadily got over the line, giving a major dent on Bangladesh's reputation.
Bangladesh v West Indies – World T20 2007
The inaugural edition of the World T20 saw another upset. Back then, Bangladesh were a very ordinary team with wins coming once-in-a-blue-moon. And one such blue moon night occurred in South Africa.
West Indies batted first and posted a respectable score of 164/8 after 20 overs, thanks to collective efforts from Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Marlon Samuels and Dwayne Bravo with the bat.
As Bangladesh’s batting was on the poorer side at the time, none expected Bangladesh to put up a fight. However, both Mohammad Ashraful and Aftab Ahmed came out all guns blazing and launched the attack without wasting a moment.
In the end, Ashraful’s 27-ball 61 and Aftab’s 62 off 49 helped Bangladesh to an emphatic victory.
England v Netherlands 2009 – World T20 2009
England might have been a disappointment for many years in ICC events, but still no-one expected them to lose to Netherlands in the 2009 edition of it.
The opening game at Lord’s was supposed to be a one-way encounter as England took on Netherlands. Being at home alone is sufficient enough a reason for the Three Lions to win the game, and when they posted an impressive total of 162/5, thanks to Luke Wright’s 71 off 49, the curtains were down for the Dutch.
Or was it?
In an enthralling chase, the game swung like a see-saw, but Tom de Grooth powered them through. Despite him missing out on a half-century, Grooth ensured the Dutch won the match by scoring a vital 30-ball 49. The Netherlands won by 4 wickets in a last ball thriller, thanks to an overthrow.
Afghanistan v West Indies – 2016 World T20
West Indies had already qualified for the semi-final and in a ruthless fashion no less. They tormented South Africa, England and Sri Lanka on the way while stamping themselves as one of the favourites to win the tournament.
Afghanistan, on the other hand, have been teasing the other teams for a while now. They played exceptionally well, and also gave hope to their fans, against South Africa, Sri Lanka and England and might as well have won those games had they had experience.
And they finally got their win vs the group leaders – the seemingly indomitable West Indies.
Posting a meagre score of 123, the game looked already over due to the destructive batting line-up that West Indies possesses. However, some exceptional bowling on a collective level from the Afghans hindered West Indies as they could only muster a poor 117.
This result made them the first team to beat West Indies this tournament as they exited the tournament on a high. The future is definitely bright for Afghanistan.
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