India beat Australia in Brisbane to win the series in test cricket on Jan 18th 2021. This is the long form of the game - played over 5 days, and it comes down to true grit. It was shocking for many different reasons. Imagine if the Miami Heat had beat the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020 missing Butler AND Adebayo AND a few bench players while starting 2 rookies. But more explicitly,
- India was severely depleted, losing their captain (the best player in the world), and more than half the team to injury (including the entire first string and most of the second string bowlers). They also lost players in the middle of matches (and they can't be replaced).
- Australia has the best bowling attack in the world, and all 5 of India's bowlers were debutants
- Australia is close to unbeatable in a series at home, and also hadn't lost a game at Brisbane in 33 years. India is no slouch (both countries are comfortably in the top 3 in world cricket), but unlike in any other sport, the home country has a big advantage because of the playing surface (India is close to unbeatable in India, and the difference between the surfaces is like the difference between the French and US Opens in tennis).
- India had been embarrassed in Game 1 and were bowled out for their lowest score ever (Imagine the Heat scoring 50 points in a game), came back and won Game 2 and looked like they were going to lose Game 3, but held on for a draw. TV networks showed India had about a 1% chance of winning Game 4 on the last day.
There are many other subtleties, but I will not go into it. Perhaps this gives some insight (for higher level, here is the New York Times highlight!). So given all that, I was thinking of comparable sporting achievements in the face of adversity in the 21st century. I had to set some rules:
- Individual games don't count. I am sure we can all find thrilling individual games and comebacks (Tom Brady's Superbowl 51 comeback, for instance). Has to be a championship or a very important series of games (e.g. Sox vs Yankees)
- It has to be somewhat significant in the global scale (or at least matter to 10s of millions).. that rules out US college sports. But even if we keep college sports, nothing measures up in College Football (big guys always win the championship,) and the closest in college basketball is if George Mason had won the NCAAT or if Butler had beaten Duke without Gordon Hayward (but they didn't and had Hayward).
So there are 4 categories. Talent differential between teams, Adversity faced (i.e. how close were they to losing, injuries, etc), Achievement relative to the biggest prize in that sport, and Shock value of the result (i.e. how surprising the result is, independent of other factors)
Here is an unranked list of similar events with scores out of 10 in each category.
Team Year Talent / Adversity /Achievement/ ShockLeicester city wins the EPL 2016 10 3 8 10
I am sure I am missing some obvious ones (in Rugby and NHL, for instance, so this will be updated...)
