On this day in 2003: West Indies take 19 balls to open their account in ODI World Cup

There were several things which were special about the 2003 Cricket World Cup. The tournament was going to be played for the first time in the African continent, day-night matches were back after none of those were played in the preceding tournament and it was the largest tournament until then as it had 14 teams. However, the mega-event didn’t get off to a flying start.

The horrendous beginning

West Indies were up against the hosts, South Africa at the beautiful Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town. After an amazing opening ceremony just a few days back, everyone was ready for a fantastic game, but the opening spell of bowling from Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini pleased only the home fans. Chris Gayle and Wavell Hinds, the West Indies openers had an approach that no one had seen coming.

Gayle took strike first and played out the over against Pollock. Then Hinds let go the over of Ntini and then once again Gayle failed to score a single run off the bowling of Pollock. It took 19 deliveries for the West Indies to get a run on the board. That run came from a wide ball which Ntini bowled to Hinds in the fourth over. At the end of that over, West Indies’ score was 2 for 0. The second run had also come because of a wide ball.

The first run off the bat only came in the 27th delivery from Gayle when he picked up a single. Eventually, Hinds was sent back by Pollock in the fifth over of the match after he failed to make a single run during his stay on the crease for 16 balls. After the five overs mark, their score was 4 for 1, out of which three runs had come from wide deliveries. Of all the World Cups which have been played until now, only the 2003 World Cup started with three straight maidens.

Eventually, West Indies recovered from that horrible start. Their star batsman, Brian Lara scored 116 runs off 134 balls to somehow push the run-rate above four at the 40th over mark. After that, there was some powerful display of batting as the Caribbean team scored 74 runs in the last six overs to make up for the slow start. They made 278 for 5, setting up a tricky chase. In reply, the hosts kept losing wickets and could never really get on with the run rate. At one point, Lance Klusenar and Nicky Boje made sure that the Proteas were in line for a winning start to their campaign.

They needed just 14 runs off the last two overs, but Pedro Collins and Vasbert Drakes ensured that the hosts couldn’t score more than 10 runs. The Proteas lost the match by just three runs.