8 Best matches from the Cricket World Cup

# 4 Sri Lanka Tied with South Africa - 2003 World Cup

Anyone that knows the history of South Africa in the World Cup knows that the Proteas have continuously found new and exciting ways to get eliminated from the tournament. Following the bizarre elimination in the semi-final against Australia in the 1999 World Cup, South Africa looked to make up for their mistake when hosting the 2003 World Cup. The final match of the group stage saw South Africa taking on Sri Lanka, and needing a win to progress to the Super Sixes as Kenya and New Zealand had won their last matches respectively.

Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat at Durban. Marvin Attapatu stood tallest of the batsmen even when wickets fell all around him. The Sri Lankan opener would compile a score of 124 and was the pick of the batsmen, with Aravinda de Silva next best with 73. Jacques Kallis was the pick of the bowlers getting 3 wickets for 41 off his 10 overs. Sri Lanka ended up posting 268 off of their 50 overs with 9 wickets down.

In reply, Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs got the South Africans off to a fantastic start before Smith fell went out for 35. Gibbs would continue on to pass 50 with a massive 6 but he eventually fell to Muttiah Muralitharan, while Jayasuriya would remove Kallis and Dippenaar cheaply to make up for his poor showing with the bat. The game would be thrown into greater chaos as rain threatened to ruin the end of the game.

With 31 deliveries left in the game, South Africa found themselves at 6/229, as the rain started to come down. Everyone at the ground apart from South Africa's wicketkeeper, Mark Boucher, seemed to be aware that South Africa needed to get to 230 in order to be ahead on Duckworth-Lewis. Unfortunately, Boucher pushed the ball out to mid wicket and they didn't run. This resulted in a tie and South Africa would finish 2 runs behind Kenya and New Zealand in 4th and out of the World Cup once again.

Had Boucher scored a single off the last ball, South Africa would have finished second in the group thanks to the fact that their run rate was better than both Kenya and New Zealand.