World Cup Cricket history, champions World Cup Cricket facts, trivia World Cup Cricket records before 2007 2007 World Cup Cricket records World Cup Cricket 1975 World Cup Cricket 1979 World Cup Cricket 1983 World Cup Cricket 1987 World Cup Cricket 1992 World Cup Cricket 1996 World Cup Cricket 1999 World Cup Cricket 2003 World Cup Cricket 2007 World Cup Cricket 2011
World Cup Cricket 1992
Pakistan Won the World Cup
After the manner of the Olympic Games, cricket’s
World Cup quadrennially grows larger and more spectacular.
The event, staged in Australia (25 matches) and New Zealand
(14 matches) in 1992, featured, for the first time, all
eight Test-playing teams, with aspiring Zimbabwe taking
the number of competing sides to an unprecedented nine.
The final was the 39th match. The first two tournaments,
in 1975 and 1979 in England, featured only 15 matches,
while in 1983 ( England) and 1987 ( India and Pakistan)
there were 27.
The fifth World Cup was the first to be played in coloured
clothing, with a white ball and some games under floodlights.
Although it was again 50 overs a side rather than the
original 60, it was generally considered to have been
the fairest: each side played all the others once before
the top four in the qualifying table played off in the
semi-finals. Lasting 33 days from first ball to last,
it could be faulted seriously only in the matter of the
rules governing rain-interrupted matches.
Recognising the imperfection of a straight run-rate calculation
when a second innings has to be shortened after rain,
and unable to schedule spare days within the time-frame
of the tournament, the World Cup committee adopted a scheme
whereby the reduction in the target would be commensurate
with the lowest-scoring overs of the side which batted
first. Against South Africa in Melbourne, England lost
nine overs but their target of 237 was reduced by only
11 runs. When the teams next met, in the Sydney semi-final,
another rain pause, this time at the climactic moment,
led to an uproar which echoed for weeks afterwards.
Pakistan won the World Cup for the first time, beating
England (twice previous finalists, never winners) by 22
runs on a memorably dramatic autumn night in Melbourne,
before an Australian limited-overs record crowd of 87,182
who paid $A2 million (£880,000). Almost half of
them sat in the newly completed Great Southern Stand,
which cost $A140 million and is the largest construction
ever conceived for Australian sport. It was further claimed
that the global television audience exceeded one billion,
in 29 countries. In Pakistan, where it was still early
evening, jubilation verging on the hysterical splashed
over into the streets, and upon their return the players
were placed on the highest pedestals of heroism.
Imran Khan, the captain, in his 40th year and nursing
a troublesome right shoulder, unsurprisingly declared
this as his finest hour, a claim clearly supported by
the pictures of him holding the £7,500 Waterford
crystal trophy, eyes wide with exhilaration, after ICC
chairman Sir Colin Cowdrey had presented it to him on
the MCG dais. This accomplished all-rounder, top-scorer
in the final with a measured 72, had urged his young team
on through times when it seemed that qualification for
the semi-finals was out of the question. They were, he
said, to take on the stance and response of the cornered
tiger. He dedicated the victory to the cause of a cancer
hospital in Lahore for which he was fund-raising in memory
of his mother. The World Cup organisers seemed content
to overlook Imran’s earlier remark that it was the
worst-organised of all the World Cups. He and Javed Miandad
(who became the highest overall run-scorer) alone have
played in all five tournaments.
Excitement was high from the opening day, when New Zealand
caused the first upset by beating Australia, the holders
and favourites, by a comfortable margin at Auckland. Led
by Martin Crowe, who made a century, New Zealand were
initiating a remarkable run of victories on their slow
pitches, Patel bowling off-spin at the start of the innings,
followed by a bevy of harmless-looking medium-pacers challenging
batsmen to come at them. Crowe’s brilliant batsmanship
and imaginative command in the field, augmented by the
shameless six-hitting of opener Greatbatch, who earned
a place only when Wright was injured, took New Zealand
almost to the ultimate glory. The co-hosts won their first
seven matches, and were not harmed by defeat (by Pakistan)
in the eighth, for it assured them of a home semi-final.
The sub-plots were multiple, for Pakistan, through this
victory at Christchurch, managed to reach the semi-finals
… so long as Australia (who had just lost their
last chance) beat West Indies at Melbourne a few hours
later. Boon’s century, his second of the series,
and Whitney’s four wickets ensured this, putting
West Indies out of the competition too.
Australia had started as favourites, but their approach
was too inflexible and their form too fickle. New strategies
had not so much passed them by as struck no receptive
chords in captain Allan Border or coach Bob Simpson. There
had been a reluctance to drop the faithful Marsh, who
was taking far too much time over his runs, and Simon
O’Donnell, voted top player the previous season,
was not even chosen in the squad. The nation was mortified
as the defeats piled up, the only victory in Australia’s
first four matches coming by a solitary run in the most
thrilling of all the finishes: at Brisbane, when the last
ball seemed successively to be a winning boundary for
India, then a catch, then again a spillage into the boundary
gutter, with Steve Waugh’s long recovery throw perhaps
too wide, but gathered by substitute wicket-keeper Boon,
who made ground to beat the batsman by a few inches. Towards
the end of the competition, Australians had been compelled
to adopt other allegiances, with no small amount of sympathy
being extended South Africa’s way.
Readmitted to the international brotherhood after 21
years of political isolation, South Africa, led by Bloemfontein-born
former Australian Test batsman Kepler Wessels, were an
unpredictable commodity. They had won one of their three
introductory limited-overs matches in India in some style
three months previously. Now, overseen by coach Mike Procter,
one of the world’s greatest cricketers at the time
of South Africa’s expulsion, and spearheaded by
the speedy Donald, they stepped coolly on to the stage
and beat Australia by nine wickets before a clamorous
crowd of almost 40,000 at Sydney, proportionate noise
issuing from the throats of hundreds of South African
supporters, some of them now resident in Australia. Wessels’s
partner at the end was Peter Kirsten, who was left out
of the original tour squad but was to average 68.33 in
the preliminary matches.
Setbacks against New Zealand and Sri Lanka were put behind
them as South Africa won their historic encounter with
West Indies in a cordially conducted match at Christchurch,
following this with a rain-assisted victory over Pakistan
at Brisbane, where Jonty Rhodes, already having attracted
notice by his electrifying fielding, immortalized himself
with an airborne demolition of the stumps to run out Inzamam-ul-Haq.
Their place in the semi-finals was secured with victory
over India in a shortened match at Adelaide, only for
their campaign to be ended cruelly by the sudden heavy
shower which fell on the SCG just before 10 p.m., transforming
a requirement of 22 off 13 balls to a mocking 21 off one.
The crowd’s frustration and hostility focused upon
the England players in lieu of the rule-makers, while
the South Africans absorbed their acute disappointment
with a dignified and somehow joyous lap of honour. Beyond
the bounds of cricket, it was believed that their success
in the tournament had had an influence on the crucial
referendum which decided whether President de Klerk’s
reforms were to be continued. Support for his progressive
dismantling of apartheid was shown in a substantial majority
of the white population’s votes, some of it unquestionably
swayed by live pictures from the far side of the Indian
Ocean which showed the national team competing popularly
and successfully after having been excommunicated for
so long.
The odds after two weeks of competition were affected
by the vacillating form most particularly of India and
West Indies, both past winners. Reshaped after the jettisoning
of several senior players, and led by an out-of-touch
Richie Richardson, West Indies won their first match convincingly
by making 221 without losing a wicket. This was not against
the lesser Zimbabwe or Sri Lanka. It was against Pakistan,
the eventual champions. Thereafter they seemed out of
sorts, though Brian Lara, the flowery left-hander, finished
with four half-centuries. India lost a tight opening match
against England, beat Pakistan, who fell apart under the
Sydney lights, but were themselves soon to fall by the
wayside through poor fielding and an indecisiveness in
all departments.
Sri Lanka managed two victories, scoring 313 at New Plymouth
to deny Zimbabwe what had seemed a certain triumph given
the weight of their own innings, centurion Andy Flower
having had his effort capitalized by Andy Waller’s
32-ball half-century. Sri Lanka’s other success
was against South Africa at Wellington, when Ranatunga
steered them home by three wickets with only a ball to
spare.
The most unexpected result came on the last day of the
qualifying matches, when Zimbabwe, having made only 134
on a sporting pitch at Albury, overthrew England by nine
runs, Eddo Brandes taking the bowling honours. England
could afford to lose, as was the case in their previous
match, against New Zealand, although the long run of success
which began when they landed in New Zealand for their
Test-match tour as the year opened was now broken and
in urgent need of repair, particularly as several key
players were carrying injuries. The somewhat fortuitous
semi-final victory over South Africa restored their direction
even if it could not dispel the accumulated weariness.
In retrospect, they might have looked back upon their
crushing defeat of Australia as their sweetest moment.
Graham Gooch’s combination became favourites when
Australia began to crack. The depth of batting and breadth
of bowling alternatives made possible by so many all-rounders,
together with the blend of experience and, in key positions,
athleticism in the field, gave England the appearance
of certain finalists and probable trophy-winners. Fatigue
and Pakistan’s inspired surge were to deny them
on the night.
Not unexpectedly, the World Cup was given wide coverage
in Australasia, though Channel 9’s television cameras
were installed only at venues where the organisers felt
the interest would be greatest. Matches which they did
cover were comprehensively treated, although this was
of little comfort to the legions of cricket enthusiasts
in Britain who had no access to the BSkyB satellite television
reception which was beamed almost around the clock. Apart
from two-minute news segments, only half an hour of highlights
of the final was shown on BBC TV. Some of the lower-shelf
fixtures were staged in rural areas, Albury’s reward
being the historic upset when Zimbabwe beat England, contrasting
with Mackay’s fate after all the months of preparation,
which was a washout after two balls.
The emergence of new faces was refreshing. Hudson, Snell
and Pringle from South Africa, Lara from West Indies,
Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mushtaq Ahmed and Aamir Sohail from Pakistan
all made a mark, five of them still not Test players.
And electrifying incidents were captured not only in the
television replays but subsequently in the proliferation
of commemorative video-cassettes. Rhodes’s flying
run-out at Brisbane was memorable, but wicket-keeper More’s
back-flick to run out Crowe at Dunedin may well have been
the most extraordinary dismissal of all. Not that Border’s
throwing accuracy, such as when he ran out Azharuddin
at Brisbane, will soon be forgotten, or the stumping of
Harris from a Mushtaq Ahmed wide, or the demolition of
Botham’s middle stump (which contained the miniature
TV camera) by McMillan, or some of Healy’s catches
behind the wicket, or Mushtaq’s googly to defeat
Hick and Wasim Akram’s wicked in-swinger to bowl
Lewis in the final.
The pool of umpires from the competing nations brought
an added flavour of internationalism without quite ensuring
the exclusion of errors, some of them quite glaring. Messrs
Bucknor and Shepherd were generally regarded as the most
reliable. The no-ball penalty for shoulder-high bouncers
was not always consistently interpreted, but ensured that
the matches were safeguarded from the excesses so often
witnessed in the recent past, especially at Test level.
Perversely, as in 1987, neither host nation won through
to the final. Seriously stunned in 1987 by their loss
to Australia in the semi-final at Lahore, Pakistan somehow
lifted themselves in the 1992 tournament after having
won only one of their first five matches. Handicapped
by the absence through injury of their outstanding fast
bowler, Waqar Younis, they were spurred on by their rarefied
captain, Imran Khan. As far as bowling strategy went they
played aggressively throughout – and with the bat
too, once the disciplined foundation had been laid. There
was satisfaction in seeing the best two teams in the final,
and, for the rare objective onlooker, a slight sadness
that only one of them could triumph. For a month, the
World Cup not only generated large profits but stirred
many hearts and touched countless nerve-ends around the
cricket world.
|
Subscribe to Cricket News RSS/XML Feed
