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The gentleman’s cricket is fiercely competitive nowadays. All the teams, whenever they take to the field have just one motive, to play good cricket and win the match. However, there can only be one winner in the end, in a cricket match.

While the winning teams usually earn a lot of plaudits for their win, on the other hand, the losing teams are criticised for their mistakes and shortcomings.

Despite this, some teams, play with such resilience that they earn respect from the fans, even if they lose the match.

Throughout cricketing history, there have been various such games, where the losing team earned appreciation from experts and fans for putting up a good fight to the winning team.

Here are three such teams who earned massive respect despite losing matches:

3) India vs Sri Lanka 2009

Teams, Earned, Massive respect, Losing Matches
(Source: Twitter)

India and Sri Lanka were due to play a five-match ODI series in 2009. In the first ODI, Sri Lanka won the toss and India were asked to bat first.

The Men in Blue marched to a humongous total of 414 runs, courtesy of Virender Sehwag’s 146 run knock and Sachin Tendulkar (69) and MS Dhoni’s (72) supporting act.

In reply, the visiting team put up an excellent show, riding high on Tillakaratne Dilshan’s 160 run inning which came just 124 balls.

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Teams, Earned, Massive respect, Losing Matches
(Source: Twitter)

For Sri Lanka Upul Tharanga (67) and Kumar Sangakkara (90) also made valuable contributions, but they fell just short of the target, managing 411 runs in their 50-overs.

India won the match by just three runs, but the visitors won plaudits for their impressive fight. Sri Lanka earned massive respect despite losing the match. India eventually won the series by a margin of 3-2.

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