The final match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 between India and Australia was played on this day in South Africa. Australia had broken the hearts of crores of Indians by winning this match. Players like captain Sourav Ganguly, great batsman Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Javagal Srinath were seen asking for water. Captain Ricky Ponting and Damien Martin opened fire for the Australia team. However, Sachin Tendulkar got the Golden Bat for scoring the most runs in this mega event.
Actually, on 23 March 2003, the final match of the World Cup was played between India and Australia. These two teams were the most successful teams of that tournament. Where Australia did not lose a single match till the semi-finals, while India had lost in the only match and that too against Australia. In such a situation, Team India not only had a chance to win its second title, but also had a chance to take revenge on the Kangaroo team, but the Indian team could not capitalize on this opportunity, while Australia disappointed crores of cricket fans of India.
Talking about that title match, Indian team captain Sourav Ganguly won the toss and decided to bowl. This decision of captain Ganguly proved to be wrong when the Australian team scored 100 runs without losing a wicket. The rest of the work was done by Captain Ricky Ponting and Damien Martin. Ricky Ponting scored 140 runs in 121 balls with the help of 4 fours and 8 sixes, while Damien Martin remained unbeaten on 88 off 84 balls. 57 runs were scored by Adam Gilchrist and 37 by Matthew Hayden. Zaheer Khan got two wickets for India. Australia scored 359 runs in 50 overs for the loss of 2 wickets.
India had got a huge target of 360 runs from Australia, which was a target like a mountain at that time. Especially in the title match, it is not easy to achieve such a big target, because the pressure of a match like the World Cup is on the seventh heaven. The same thing happened with Team India and the team was piled up after scoring 234 runs in 39.2 overs. Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid certainly tried to fight, but these players also looked far from the target. Sehwag was dismissed for 82 runs in 81 balls and Dravid scored 47 runs. 24-24 runs were scored by Yuvraj and Sourav Ganguly. India had suffered a crushing defeat by 125 runs.