What happened on this day?

March 17 has been a significant date over the years. Down memory lane, Cricket Tracker looks back at what happened over the years on this day and lists the top 3 events.

1996: Sri Lanka’s World Cup Win

Before the 1996 World Cup, nobody gave Sri Lanka a chance of crowning themselves but the underdogs of the tournament, Sri Lanka had different plans. Upsetting England and India in their last two knock-out matches, they demolished the mighty Australians by 7 wickets and 22 balls to spare, when even a target of 245 was daunting. The man of the match was Aravinda de Silva, who scored 107 not-out and accounted for 3 wickets and 2 catches, and it remains one of the formidable match winning performances by an all-rounder.

2007: A day of Underdogs

Bangladesh were not a formidable force then, as they are now. Similarly is the case with Ireland. But when it comes to World Cups, they are always happy to be the small fries among the big boys, getting ready to launch their guerilla attack. In the year 2007, March 17 was a day of underdogs, when Bangladesh upsetted India by 5 wickets in Pot-of-Spain after rounding them up for 191, and Ireland doubled it up by packing Pakistan for 132, led by an inspired 6 feet 7 inches Boyd Rankin.

1987: Finally a result

On this day, India lost the fifth test and a home series for the first time against Pakistan, when they failed to chase down 221. It also marked the end of a record 11 consecutive draws between the two sides. The outgoing Sunil Gavaskar scored 96 in his last innings but the next highest score in the innings was extras 27. It was certainly a sad end for Sunil Gavaskar who went out with 10,122 runs to his name, the then maximum runs by any batsman.