Some victories are hard to get. Hard to achieve. It’s not that one can’t ace it. Or that one can’t win it!
One does end up winning but then it comes after a really long and tiresome wait that tests not just the patience of the winning team but even its home fans.
Some title triumphs, coveted that they may be, come akin to a great moral victory after years of living amid arduous, unspeakable challenges and with it, frustrations.
The same rule has actually been applicable to some of the best world cricket sides who had to really wait their portion of time before laying hands around a huge triumph.
Let’s find out who or which these teams were, right?
Teams with Longest Gaps between two ICC Titles
South Africa – 27 years (From CT 1998 to WTC 2025 wins)
In an emotional turn of events, South Africa defeated Australia by five wickets, to win their first ICC trophy in 27 years at the Lord’s in London, taking home the coveted World Test Championship (WTC) 2025 title on June 14. While chasing 282-run target, Aiden Markram was the star of the show with the bat for South Africa, scoring a fantastic hundred, to play a key role in taking South Africa over the finishing line in the run chase against Australia for a major title victory.
This victory came after a 27-year long wait for South Africa after they had won the inaugural edition of the ICC Champions Trophy in 1998, called ICC Knockout Trophy at the time, by getting the better of West Indies by four wickets at the Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka.
It was their first-ever ICC trophy as a cricketing nation just seven years after getting readmitted to the sport upon the conclusion of the Apartheid.
West Indies – 25 years (From CWC 1979 to CT 2004 wins)
This is not just a team. It is, if you were to attach some emotional chords, an emotion. A happy emotion. And can that ever hurt anyone or cause annoyance?
However, what did certainly hurt the West Indies fans back home is the very fact that it took their own cricket team not less than 25 odd years to win another celebrated or prominent ICC title triumph.
Back in the 1970’s, the West Indies were mighty maulers; they’d hammer the living daylight of their opponents. But the team that followed in the post-Viv, Clive Lloyd and Marshall era was one whose only hope to glory was maybe delaying the climax and what was that climax?
To delay the inevitable, which usually meant, irrespective of format, another West Indies series loss.
So when even greats like Ambrose and Walsh walked into the sunset and all that remained to revive dying hopes in terms of triumphing in a mega tournament like the Champion’s Trophy was Brian Lara, the man led from the front. But as captain; not batter. The final win against England in the 2004 edition of the West Indies-dominated Champions Trophy saw Lara departing early but that didn’t mean that to win the nerve wrecking run chase, someone like Browne and Ian Bradshaw didn’t rise to the occasion. They did in the most thrilling of manners. In the end, in executing a great run heist, the Prince of Trinidad Brian Lara sported the biggest smile possible as did his comrades.
And even for a change, the West Indies flag waved high in the annals of world cricket. What a triumph, one that came after 25 long years of waiting.
New Zealand – 21 years (From CT 2000 to WTC 2021 wins)
It has to be said and hence, must be said that the BlackCaps team that wore the distinct look of a Christ Carins and Chris Harris and not to forget, Stephen Fleming back two and a half decades ago was drastically different from the one that actually lifted nowhere else, but at Lord’s the prized title triumph of Test match cricket: the WTC final.
It took intense hard-work and tons of passion and, the horribly drab adjective of ‘underrated’ to win the highest possible award that one can achieve in the top echelons of Test cricket.
And once they got there, the New Zealanders had the calm and able leader in their ranks: Kane Williamson.
India – 19 years (From CWC 1983 to CT 2002 wins)
There’s no country out there in world cricket that doesn’t understand or respect the prominence as well as the position of India as a true giant of the game. That is where the current team is at, even as stalwarts like Kohli and Rohit are just around to play the one day format.
But back in the day, when the huge 1983 word cup triumph came about all of the current names in Indian cricket establishment were youngsters.
And it would take the mega talented country another 19 years, that’s nearly two decades, let that sink in, to win another famed ICC trophy.
However, by that time, in 2002, giants like Kumble and Sachin and even Dravid were around.
Pakistan – 17 years (From CWC 1992 to T20WC 2009 wins)
Pakistan have, for quite some time, been down and out where it comes to playing a respectable and commendable brand of cricket in the sport’s top tiers.
Surely, back in the day, they were powered by an amazingly talented line up that had. Wasim and Waqar and forget not, a young looking Inzi, which is how they won a great ODI men’s World Cup title. That was circa 1992. But then, it took them seventeen long years and lots of perseverance to reign at the T20 World Cup 2009 edition. Gladly, though, they still had an old school assassin with the bat in their ranks. The name is Shahid Afridi.
Sri Lanka – 12 years (From CT 2002 to T20WC 2014 wins)
From being the perennial dark horse of cricket to ultimately levelling up their game come the mega ’96 Wills World Cup before reigning supreme in the 2002 edition of the famed Champion’s Trophy, Sri Lanka exhibited world class talents and that factor called infallibility in the top level of the sport. It was thanks to the winning attitude they wholesomely developed under once leader Arjuna Ranatunga before a band of exciting cricketers in Jayasuriya and De Silva backed up by Murali and Vaas simply elevated their level of competitiveness.
However while each of them were around to see the mega 2002 CT win, they were already ex-cricketers by the time a new reign of champions carved their destiny. Thank Sanga. Think Mahela and of course, Lasith Malinga.