3. World Cup, 2003

India had a remarkable campaign in World Cup 2003 after losing their first match against Australia in group stages. India faced Sri Lanka in the Super Sixes round at Wanderers in Johannesburg. Sri Lanka asked India to bat first and they were made to regret their decision immediately.

Sachin Tendulkar led the charge with flamboyant innings of 97. Sehwag (66) and Sachin built a partnership of 156 runs in 27 overs to give India a platform needed to score big runs. However, Sri Lanka tightened them back with wickets in the last few overs and India was restricted to 292/6 in 50 overs.

Veteran bowlers Muralitharan took 3/46 and Vaas took 2/34 in their quota of 10 overs. Aravinda de Silva pitched in with the important wicket of Sachin, who was smashing the ball to all-over the park.

While chasing the target, Sri Lankan suffered a drastic collapse. A lot of credit for that goes to Javagal Srinath, who was tempted by Sourav Ganguly into playing his final World Cup in 2003. He removed Atapattu (0), Jayasuriya (12), Mubarak (0) and Aravinda de Silva (0) in a span of 8 overs to leave Sri Lanka reeling at 40/5. Srinath ended up with the figures of 4/35.

Rest of the team was bundled by Ashish Nehra who also picked up 4/35 and Zaheer Khan who took 2/33 and Sri Lanka disintegrated to 109 all out in 23 overs. India won the match by 183 runs and Javagal Srinath won his final Man of the match award in his international career.