ODI World Cup: Rating top 5 best opening pairs in History

The ICC ODI World Cup 2023 is just a month away and the craze and anticipation for the event which will begin on October 5, is at an all-time high. The tickets for the big matches are being gobbled up online. This will be the first time India will host the entire ODI World Cup on its own.

Notably, India have hosted the 1987 World Cup with Pakistan, the 1996 World Cup with Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and the 2011 World Cup with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, respectively. Batting is one of the biggest crowd-pullers in the ODI matches as the fans love to see their favorite batters score runs and hit sixes and fours. The onus of giving a good start to the batting side is on the two opening batters.

There have been many opening pairs who have done well in the World Cup tournament and some of them have gained legendary status due to their performances.

Here we are rating of the top 5 best opening pairs in ODI World Cup history: 

5. Tilakaratne Dilshan and Upul Tharanga (SL, 7/10)

Upul Tharanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan opened the innings for Sri Lanka in the 2011 World Cup tournament, in which their team made it to the grand final. Notably, the Lankan Lions featured in the second successive final. Dilshan had topped the runs chart for the 2011 World Cup and his partnership at the top with Tharanga was the reason why Sri Lanka got a solid base for big runs in the fag stages of the game. The duo added 800 runs in only 9 matches at an average of 100.

The two batters added more than 200 runs for the first wicket twice. The biggest was 282 runs which came against Zimbabwe. Dilshan made 144 and Tharanga scored 133 runs in that match.

As a result, Sri Lanka finished with 327/6 on the board. Their next best was a 10-wicket drubbing of England in the quarter-final of the World Cup. Both Dilshan and Tharanga hammered unbeaten centuries. This meant that Sri Lanka chased down 229 runs without breaking a sweat.