Cricket World Cup History: Five heart-breaking moments in the World Cup history

#3 England vs South Africa 1992 World Cup semi-finals

Rain ruined South Africa's chance in 1992 World cup

The fifth edition of Cricket World Cup in 1992 was a complete package. Team Pakistan lead by captain Imran Khan went on to win their maiden World cup trophy defeating England by 22 runs in the final. South Africa was another team which made its first appearance after apartheid & looked the best team throughout the world cup until that ill fateful day.

Before Duckworth-Lewis, the cricket had something called as Rain rule, which decided the course of the match upon rain intervention. South Africa had progressed to the knockout stage after winning five out of their eight matches in the league stage. In the first semi-final game, the tournament favourites New Zealand were sent home by Pakistan. South Africa & England played the second semi-final.

South African captain Kepler Wessels won the toss & elected to bowl first. England was pegged initially with the wicket of the skipper Graham Gooch. The significant partnerships for the third and fourth wicket alongside Graeme Hick impelled England close to 200 runs. Soon after Hick was dismissed, England's lower order managed to post a decent total of 252 on the board in 45 overs. The innings had to be cut down to 45 overs due to the time restrictions owing to slow over rate.

In reply, South African batsmen scored at a healthy strike rate to keep up with the required run rate. But also, kept losing wickets at regular intervals in order to score quickly. The scoreboard read 231 for the loss of 6 wickets when rain interrupted the match at 42.5 overs mark. The equation was around 22 runs off the last 13 deliveries for South Africa to win the match.

The rain interruption led to a reduction in overs. Pertaining to the rain rules, the revised target for Proteas was 252 runs in 43 overs which meant South Africa had to score an impossible 21 runs off just one delivery. As a result, they got eliminated and England advanced to the finals. Even today, this is the most heart-breaking and contentious incident in cricketing history.