On the 5th of October 2023, the Cricket World Cup began in India.
For those of you who don’t know much about the Cricket World Cup, it is a unique tournament that occurs every four years. The official name is ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. The Cricket World Cup has taken place thirteen times and is an international tournament. The first ever Cricket World Cup took place in England in June 1975, where the West Indies won. This is the most important tournament in cricket. Over the years many countries have dominated this Cup, but only one of them that stands out the most, Australia. Australia has won the Cricket World Cup six times, which is the most any country has ever managed to get in the Cricket World Cup. India and the West Indies are tied to the second most Cricket World Cup wins. As you can see Australia has triple the number of victories than the second places. To win the Cricket World Cup, countries need good players. There are some players that stand out more than others. Those are for example: Virat Kohli, who plays for India and is considered the best cricket player in the World. There is Sachin Tendulkar, also known as the God of cricket. He has the most centuries (100 runs in a match) in Cricket history with 100, of those 51 in test matches and 49 in ODI matches.
In the most recent World Cup Australia snatched the victory from India. You must be asking why?
In the structure of the World Cup, countries compete against each other in a table. The rules state. If you win a match, your victory gets added to your wins. The same goes for the losses. After you have played all your matches, depending on how many countries compete, the top four countries go to a separate small tournament with the most wins. There they start in the semifinals, where they play against each other. The winner of each semifinal will go forward to the finals. This is where it really matters. The winner of this final has won the Cricket World Cup. Sounds simple, right.
The case with the 2023 World Cup was India had dominated on the table, without losing a single match. They had even beaten Australia. At the end Australia had placed 3. The top four that qualified were India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Then India had beaten New Zealand in the semifinals, Australia had beaten South Africa in the semifinals too. In the finals Australia beat India, after India’s win prediction was way higher than Australia's.