Years have passed by, but still, the team which comes in our mind when we talk about cricket in Australia. The team which dominated the world cricket for years, surpassing every single cricketing nation in the world in all formats of the game. Australia started playing One Day International cricket from 1970 against their friendly rivals England. The Aussies appeared in 12, 50 overs ICC WORLD CUP events starting from 1975 in England.
On this day the Australians achieved their 4th world cup titles, and thrice in a row (1999, 2003, 2007), defeating Pakistan in 1999, India in 2003, and Sri Lanka in 2007. Under the captaincy of Ricky Ponting, Australia lifted the world cup for consecutive years (2003 and 2007). On this day in the year, 2007 Australia defeated Sri Lanka in rain-affected finals by 53 runs on the basis of Duckworth-Lewis to lift their title at the Kensington Oval in Barbados. after winning the toss and choosing to bat first, openers Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist put on 172 runs on their 1st wicket partnership. Gilchrist played a jaw-dropping knock and went on to play an unbeaten knock of 149 runs of just 104 balls to take Australia’s total to 281/4 in 38 overs. Hayden and Ponting played a knock of 38 and 37 respectively.
Chasing 282, Sri Lanka faced a lot of difficulty in the weather and they were restricted to 215/8 in 36 overs. On the side, Kumar Sangakkara played a knock of 54 runs while for Australia, Michael Clarke took two wickets. In total Australia has won the 50 over World Cup five times (1987, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2015).
Winning Captains-
- 1987- Allan Border against England
- 1999- Steve Waugh against Pakistan
- 2003- Ricky Ponting against India
- 2007- Ricky Ponting against Sri Lanka
- 2015- Michael Clarke against New Zealand