As much fun it is to see teams batting first win by big margins, it is equally fun to see teams bowling out the opposition out first and chasing it with record margin to win the match. It may be boring for the viewer but it’s great for the record books and seeing such dominance once in a while is nice.
It would be very interesting to see what are the top 5 Greatest Win Margins by balls in One Day International cricket. It rarely happens in the sport so it would be enriching for the readers as well.
1. England vs Canada , 1979 Prudential World Cup (277 Balls):
This match happened during the 1979 ODI World Cup in Manchester. It was a complete mismatch to be honest. A world cup match being so lopsided is not a good thing and even worse for Canada they lost the match by record margin of balls remaining in the match. While batting first Canada could only make a mere 45 runs and England made a cakewalk of it and chased it down with a record 277 balls still remaining in the match. It wasn’t a great advertisement for the game as a whole and Canada would like to forget that it ever happened.
2. Zimbabwe vs Sri Lanka , 8th Dec - 2001 (274 Balls):
This match took place in 2001 when the Zimbabwe team was at its peak so a result like this was really unexpected. They were Two evenly matched teams at that time. While batting first Zimbabwe could only make 38 runs and Chaminda Vaas run riot with 8 wickets for just 19 runs and while batting in the 2nd innings Sri Lanka chased the total with 274 balls to spare. This was an embarrassing defeat for Zimbabwe.
3. Canada vs Sri Lanka , 19th Feb - 2003 (272 balls):
This is also a world cup match and it took place in 2003. This was again a mismatch at the biggest stage in ODI cricket and this isn’t very good to see for the viewers of the game. It followed the same pattern where the underdog team batted first and scored only 36 runs in an ODI match and then let the opposition chase it down with 272 balls left. Such hammerings only look nice when it happens rarely but when it becomes common especially in world cups then it shows that the sport is not growing into different countries at the rate that it should.
Also Read | Top 10 highest wicket taker in ODIs
4. USA vs Nepal , 12th Feb - 2020 (268 balls):
This is a match where these sorts of records should be even more rare because it’s evenly matched teams playing against each other and they should strive to improve the quality of the game. In this match USA while batting first could only make 35 runs on the board in a dismal batting effort and in the second innings Nepal won the match with 268 balls to spare and lost 2 wickets in the process as well. The teams that lose such kind of matches should seriously introspect that where they went so horrible wrong that they lost in such drastic fashion and work so that it never happens again.
5. New Zealand vs Bangladesh , 1st Jan - 2008 (264 balls):
This is one match where this record happening is out of the ordinary because while batting first Bangladeshi made 94 runs in the first innings ,as little as it is , surely it’s not that low to get chased with so many balls to spare, but Brendon McCullum is a maniac and when he decides to do something crazy he does it and this day he decided to go all out and he smashed 80 runs of only 28 balls with 6 huge Sixes and winning the match with 264 balls remaining. This match was entertaining for the viewers who didn’t expect the match to finish so quickly and they saw one man’s brilliance do it.
