RECENT ICC Men’s T20 World Cup victories by the USA over Pakistan and Canada over Ireland — along with uncomfortably close wins by South Africa over Nepal and Australia over Scotland — should remind us of this important precept in sport: Beware of the underdog. It is true that the better team normally wins. But on some occasions, often memorably so, the unheralded team or performer rises above expectations and triumphs gloriously over the favourite.

It is, in the main, why we watch sport. How humdrum it would all be if the better team always won. Would so many of us tune in to the game or the race to see it unfold? We, the fans, really want novelty; we want excitement; we want the unexpected. It is good to witness a great team at the height of its powers put in a well-oiled performance and thereby triumph over its less proficient opponents. But it’s better still, and much more thrilling, to watch the lowly ranked team climb above its station to beat its more highly rated adversary.

When Leicester City Football Club defied 5000-1 odds to win the English Premier League in 2016, it generated countless tales that would otherwise not have been written. After all, it was more likely, according to bookmakers William Hill, that the late singer and actor Elvis Presley would be found alive and well than for Leicester to finish top of the league. That is why it is remembered and spoken about more than any of the wins by the much more fancied teams like Liverpool or Chelsea or Manchester City.

I remember quite well Kenya beating the West Indies in a World Cup game in 1996. But ask me about any number of games in which the good team walloped the supposed minnow and I’d be hard-pressed to recall. Those kinds of upsets linger in the mind much longer.

Some years ago, “Miracle on Ice” was voted by fans in the United States as the biggest sporting upset in history. The “miracle” took place during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, where the American ice hockey team stunned the world by beating the Soviet Union 4-3.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. The Soviet team of professionals should have wiped the floor with a US team made up only of amateurs. The Soviets had won gold in six of the previous seven games and were overwhelming favourites to do so again. But the American team played out of their skins and emerged with a hard-fought, hugely unexpected win. “Do you believe in miracles?” famed sportscaster Al Michaels shouted in the final moments.

Beware of the man with nothing to lose. The underdog has little to lose and, therefore, little to fear. This fearlessness, in turn, breeds freedom — freedom to be aggressive, freedom to be expansive, freedom to take risks. This freedom elevates the threat of the underdog. The better team or performer is normally good enough to overcome that threat on most days. Occasionally, however, given the right conditions, or due to the underperformance of their opponent, or because of just plain good luck, the underdog triumphs and the fans rejoice.

When Buster Douglas upended the boxing world by knocking out the unbeatable Mike Tyson in Tokyo in 1990, reports are that the heavyweight champion had not trained for the fight as studiously as he should have. The challenger and underdog was made fearless by a number of difficulties that had plagued him before the fight: His son’s mother had a serious kidney ailment; he contracted the flu the day before the fight; and, most significantly, his mother died approximately three weeks before he stepped into the ring. Douglas, consequently, felt he had nothing to lose. He fought like a man without fear, and won.

The USA is almost a non-entity in cricketing terms, with a team made up mostly of immigrants from cricket-playing places like India and the Caribbean. Pakistan, on the other hand, is a great cricketing nation which has a tradition of achievement in the sport. Its team includes some of the best players in the world, like Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, and Mohammad Rizwan. Though they have a reputation for volatility, there is no doubt they possess the quality to defeat any team. On June 6 in Dallas, however, the USA defeated their more highly vaunted opponents after being locked in a spirited battle. It was a huge victory for the co-hosts, one the authorities hope will do much to help the game take root in America. USA captain, Monank Patel, had this to say: “USA have made history with unadulterated skill and gumption. This win could define not just their progress in this World Cup but also their cricketing history.”

The underdog is often highly motivated to beat the better team. The side written off as no-hopers will strain every sinew to prove the doubters wrong. When the West Indies toured Australia for two Test matches early this year, nobody gave them a realistic chance. Of the 15 selected in the touring squad, seven were total newcomers to Test cricket, while three others had played fewer than five games in total. The Australians, on the contrary, had a settled side with high-performing players, most of whom have been playing together for several years. So it was a shocker when the Caribbean side won the second Test at Brisbane to tie the series. Those of us who told them they were going to be utterly humiliated were forced to eat our words.

The lesson here is clear: Underestimate the less-fancied teams at your own risk.

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