7 greatest twists in World Cup history

#6 England vs Australia, Port Elizabeth, 2003

This game had several changes of fortune, and there were many instances where both could have won it. It was Australia that managed to come out winners in a low-scoring game that was played at Port Elizabeth. A striking feature of the game was that both innings were unbelievably similar, and Australia just managed to steer ahead of the England total with 2 balls and 2 wickets to spare.

Andy Bichel proved to be the undoing of the English. He was there hitting the winning runs for Australia, and he was the one who started the downfall of the English innings after Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee were proving to be ineffective against the English openers, who got the innings off to a flier. He started with the wickets of Nick Knight, Michael Vaughan and Nasser Hussain, dismissing the latter two cheaply in just one over. He got Paul Collingwood caught behind some overs later, and the score now read 87/5, when at one stage they were cruising at 66/0.

Andrew Flintoff and Alec Stewart did add 90 runs in the middle, but Bichel once again came back to claim their wickets in the space of 3 runs before dismissing Ashley Giles too. He had taken 7 of the 8 wickets to fall in the English innings, and was tipped to be the hero of the game. What the fans did not see coming was his invaluable contribution that was required later in the day as well.

Australia lost wickets early before Darren Lehmann and Michael Bevan pulled off something of a resurrection. Bevan remained not out, surviving scares at the non-striker’s end as he saw Lehmann falling, followed by Andrew Symonds, Brad Hogg and Brett Lee. It was 135/8 in the 38th over when Bichel walked in and played a sensible 34 off 36 balls to get Australia over the line.

The choice of the 49th over when 14 were needed was a big gamble, with James Anderson, who had gone for runs, being preferred to the experienced Andy Caddick. Bichel drove the 2nd and 3rd balls of the over for a six and four respectively to seal the match, and also hit the winning four off Flintoff in the final over to give Australia a famous win and shock the English.