Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

On October 16th, Australia scored 359 runs in the first innings in the ODI against India. Australia must have felt pretty good about their chances; after all India had never chased down a 300+ target against them before. Indeed, the win probability of Australia stood at 1 after the end of 1st innings. What followed after that was a carnage by the Indian batsmen, and the second innings ended after just 43 overs and 3 balls, with India chasing down the target easily losing only one wicket in the process.

This was clearly Australia’s match to lose, and they went down from win probability of 1 to 0 during the course of the match. To put it mildly, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Unlikely as it may sound, there have been 49 such ODIs since 2009 where a team went from win probability of 1 to losing the match in the end. In 2013 alone, there have been six other instances where a team has “crashed” to defeat after seemingly being in a sure-win position:

1. South Africa crashing against New Zealand
2. West Indies crashing against Australia
3. Ireland crashing against Pakistan
4. England crashing against Sri Lanka
5. West Indies crashing against Pakistan
6. Ireland (yet again!) crashing against England

Since 2009, India have been the biggest gatecrashers at the party, as they have spoiled the party of their opponents in such matches 11 times, way ahead of joint second place holders, Pakistan and Australia, as shown in the table below.

On the other hand, New Zealand have been at the receiving end of such crushing defeats six times, most among all the teams. South Africa keeps up with its tag of being a choker, and has crashed to such defeats a total of five times, ending up joint second on the losing list.