With the cricketing extravaganza in the air and to reach where it is now, it had to pass through various phases. From its nascent stage, in 1975, when critics and pessimists were still debating its viability, to 1992, when the event donned a new colourful look, the World Cup has developed at a rapid pace. Number of teams increased and with every passing edition, there were more stories to tell: of failures, of successes, trials and tribulations… But, if you haven’t followed it all, or would like to relive these moments, just read on…for we bring you the past here in a nutshell.
World Cup 1975
By 1975, a World Cup event was taking place in every major sport of the world, except cricket. The only attempt ever at holding a World Cup like event was in 1912 when England, Australia and South Africa played a Test triangular. The tournament was a damp squib and the experiment never repeated. However, the international ban on South Africa from 1970 opened a gap in England’s schedule as typically South Africa toured England once in 4-5 years. The gap was initially filled in 1970 by a lacklustre series between England and ‘Rest of the World’. Better sense prevailed 5 years later when ICC finally caught up with the rest of the sporting world when it organized cricket’s first World Cup.
1975 was a time when a demographic change was taking place in England with the growing West Indian and Asian population that wasn’t shy of expressing its culture in public. The World Cup timed perfectly with these cultural changes in England as the noisy and colourful West Indian fans packed the stadiums with drums, bands and whistles giving it a feeling of a Caribbean carnival rather than a white collared colonial game watched by a crowd with impeccable “manners” and dressed in ties and suites.
The World Cup commenced with England, the pre-tournament favorites, playing India. And it made news right away — not because the pre-tournament favourites England won easily by 202 runs, but because a batsman from their opposite team played what is still the most bizarre one-day innings — Sunil Gavaskar batted for all the 60 overs to score an unbeaten thirty-six.
As the tournament progressed, the cricket fans were treated to the kind of excitement they hadn’t ever experienced in test matches. In one of the preliminary group matches, West Indies beat Pakistan by one wicket with two balls to spare after their last 2 wickets had added 110 runs between them. In another memorable incident, West Indian batsman Alvin Kalicharan took on Lillee’s “bouncer challenge” by hooking and pulling him for 39 runs in just 10 balls. West Indies easily won its semifinal match against New Zealand while Australia edged out England by 4 wickets in a low-scoring semifinal thriller after being down to 39/6 at one stage. The stage was set for the ultimate showdown at Lord’s on June 21, the longest day of the year.
The mid-summer day proved to be an appropriate choice for the WC final, as it took almost the entire length of the day to complete the match. The match started at 11:00 am and ended at 8:42 pm. Australia won the toss and chose to bowl on a flat wicket— one of the many decisions they took during the day that reflected their lack of understanding of the one-day game. Clive Lloyd, the West Indies skipper hammered 102 in just 85 balls to set up a huge total of 291/8. The target looked too hot for the Australians, made worse by 3 run-outs, including those of the Chappel brothers at the hands of a young Viv Richards, who in later years was to make a mark in a World Cup final with his bat. At 233/9, still almost 60 runs short, it looked all over for Australia, at least to the thousands of West Indian fans who lined up at the boundary taking up the “on your marks” position each time a ball was bowled. But the Australian last pair of Lillee-Thommo defied the West Indian bowlers for about 30 minutes bringing the Australian total to within 26 with two overs to spare when the ultimate drama unfolded:
Thomson flicked the very 1 ball of the penultimate over to the long leg boundary and barely made the 2nd run before the bails were whipped off by the keeper. The West Indian fans who had anxiously been waiting for half an hour to invade the ground to celebrate their team’s win couldn’t hold any longer and ran into the field. Soon they realized that the umpire hadn’t given any run out decision and went back. But they were back a ball later when Thomson was caught at covers as one didn't need to wait for the umpire’s decision for a clean catch— except that they didn't realize that it was a no-ball!
The crowd engulfed the entire ground, except for the pitch where Lillee-Thomson could be spotted frantically sprinting up and down almost oblivious to the pandemonium in the rest of the ground. Apparently, the ball had been lost in the crowd and the pair felt that they could “steal” an unlikely win by running all the 20 or so runs! Once the order was restored, Thommo went up to the umpire to ask how many runs they had scored – “Two” was the umpire Spencer’s reply. A shocked Thompson threw the bat on the ground and cried: We have been running up and down all afternoon and all you give us is two runs!” A few moments later, the last wicket did fall and this time there were no doubts about it as all the players sprinted to the pavilion, desperately trying to beat the invading crowd. The last images seen on television were those of Thomson stripping off his pads on the ground before making his desperate run to the pavilion. Some others weren’t as fortunate — umpire Dickie Bird lost his sweater and hat while a West Indian fielder had his boots snatched. The carnival was over and the West Indians fans wanted to take a piece of it back with them!
A year later, while travelling on a bus in London, umpire Dickie Bird noticed a bus conductor of West Indian origin wearing a hat that looked remarkably familiar. When he asked about the hat, the bus conductor replied, “Man, have you heard of Dickie Bird? I was there at the world cup final. We all ran into the field, I won the race, and took the hat from his head”.
World Cup 1979
“Kingdom” or Collis King, the new batsman at the crease to Viv Richards (Smokey) in the middle of a tense moment during the West Indies innings of the WC final when they were struggling at 92/4. “Sir Geoffrey Boycott”, a part-time bowler had just made the mistake of carrying a smirk while bowling at the West Indian batsman. The response was that Collis King smashed 86 runs in 50 minutes off 67 balls wiping out the smirk from Boycott’s face for good. West Indies piled up 286 and England didn’t even come close, giving West Indies their second successive World Cup win.
Besides, the Collis King special, there were two other memorable moments during the WC 1979 final. On the last ball of the West Indian innings, Viv Richards, moved totally over to the off-stump, (exposing his middle and off) and flicked the ball for a six. During England’s chase, Clive Lloyd, the West Indian captain dropped the simplest of chances of Geoff Boycott. While Lloyd has always denied that the drop was intentional, it is hard to believe that it wasn’t — Boycott had consumed over a 100 balls for his half-century, which opponent would have liked to take his wicket?
West Indies won the World Cup 1979 in a canter. The world cricket was still split because of the Packer affair and as a result all of Australia’s top players and some of England’s players were banned from playing for their teams leaving the already invincible West Indies with no credible opponents. The tournament lacked the excitement of the previous World Cup or any of the World Cups that followed, especially if you are an Indian fan as the team lost all its three matches by wide margins, including a humiliating loss to Sri Lanka that wasn’t even recognized as a Test playing nation at that time.
World Cup 1983
Did he say India? But this is “foot in the mouth” Kim Hughes, isn’t it?
Except that had Kim Hughes put his money where his mouth is, he would have won 4,000 pounds on a 100-pound bet as the odds for an Indian win had dropped to 1:40 during the world cup final!
Not even the most optimistic of Indian fans would have taken Kim Hughes’ prediction seriously. This was a team that had only won a single match out of six in the past World Cups and that too against a team comprising of club cricketers from East African countries. Their recent one-day record was not much to write home about as WI and Pakistan had beaten them 3-1 and 5-1 respectively on recent tours. Asides from Kapil Dev, the all-rounders were Madan Lal, an innocuous medium pacer, the dibbly-dobbly Roger Binny more noticeable for his portly figure than any achievement on the field, Kirti Azad a domestic bully, Balwinder Singh Sandhu and a raw Ravi Shastri. Surely, the team couldn’t pose a threat to England or West Indies.
But there was a catch — most of the preliminary matches were played on unpredictable county wickets where bowlers like Binny and Madan Lal could create havoc. As it turned out, Binny topped the wicket takers with 18 wickets and Madan Lal followed closely behind with 17. The presence of all-rounders meant that India batted deeper than any other team and could stretch the score by 20-30 runs in any game (even the No. 11 batsman, Sandhu had two Test half centuries to his name).
The World Cup had an improved format over the previous World Cups as each team played six preliminary group matches. It was a more competitive World Cup than it’s preceding ones, as there were no minnows. Even Zimbabwe, the bottom team beat the fancied Australia in it’s first match and went on to run India very close in another match. West Indies started as clear favourites but were in for a shock in their first match when India beat them by 35 runs as Binny and Madan Lal ran through their top and middle order. The Windies recovered in the subsequent matches winning all their group matches and the semifinal comfortably. Whereas India slipped after a fine start, losing by big margins to Australia and West Indies as well as facing the barrel at 17/5 while batting first against Zimbabwe. Enter Kapil Dev in a situation when almost any other cricketer would have tried to minimize the damage. Instead, Kapil took the attack to the opposition scoring 175 runs in 135 balls including 6 sixes to the long-on/long-off boundaries. The score of 266 was too much for the inexperienced Zimbabwe and India had made one of the most remarkable recoveries from which there was no turning back. India played Australia next for a place in the semifinal and once again the tail wagged stretching the total to a healthy 247 and the Indian medium-pacers (Binny, Madan Lal and Sandhu) ran through the opposite batting.
The host England had done little wrong during the preliminary stage and had been the only team to remain unchanged for the whole of the group matches. Their main bowlers were in top form while their batsmen David Gower and Graeme Fowler were close to the top in batting averages for the World Cup. The match started on a top note with England reaching 84/1 in just over 20 overs. Yet, the wobbly Mohinder Amarnath and Kirti Azad inexplicably tied down the much-fancied middle-order. Ian Botham, one of the fiercest stroke players of the game at that time scored only 6 runs in 26 balls and the run-rate dropped to about 3.5 runs an over. After a cautious start, Indian romped home to the target of 214 runs helped by stabilizing knocks in the middle-order by Mohinder Amarnath and Yashpal Sharma and a 32 ball half century from Sandeep Patil — arguably the best cameo of the tournament!
June 25, 1983 is a day permanently etched in the memory of all Indian cricket fans. Millions of Indians glued to the television to watch a David v/s Goliath encounter, anticipating a quick and easy win for the Windies. And as India slumped to 7/131 while batting first, it looked like the Cinderella like run had finally come. The bookies were offering 1:40 for an India win which in the hindsight was premature as the wicket was under prepared and therefore suitable for the tidy Indian medium pacers and the Indian tail had shown the ability to “wag” throughout the World Cup. Helped by useful knocks from the bottom three (Madan Lal, Kirmani and Sandhu), India edged to a respectable 183 runs.
The West Indies got off to a bad start when Greenidge shouldered his arms to a huge in-swinger from Sandhu. Enter Viv Richards, the hero of the past two World Cups! Within no time, he began to show his contempt for the Indian medium pace attack by thrashing 32 runs in 28 balls when the situation suggested that he “graft” his innings instead. With the score at 65/2 and West Indies coasting along, Richards mistimed an across the line drive over midwicket and millions of Indians held their breath as Kapil ran a long way backwards towards the boundary to take an amazing catch. Suddenly there was panic in the West Indian camp and disastrous middle-order collapse reduced the Windies to 76/6. Dujon and Marshall revived the team’s fortunes with a patient 43 runs stand, but there was no escape from Mohinder Amarnath’s dead accurate seam bowling as he dismissed the tail with figures of 3/12 in 7 overs. The last wicket fell at 143, aptly to Mohinder Amarnath who was adjudged the Man of the match for both the semifinal and the final. A lasting image from the World Cup was that of the dejected West Indian fans (and players), some openly weeping. It was reminiscent of Brazil's defeat in the 1982 FIFA World Cup when their fans looked inconsolable after the defeat. However, for the Indian fans, the cricket carnival had just begun— and is still going strong 28 years later!
World Cup 1987
Over time the world became familiar with “Ice-cool” Steve Waugh and company raising their standard of play when it matters the most and holding their nerves in tense situations. This was however the 1 occasion when this ability was witnessed. Australia outsmarted fancied opponents Pakistan and England in closely fought semifinal and final to win their first World Cup.
The World Cup 1983 had created a historic moment for India not just for the obvious reason that India won it, but also for another reason — the Lord’s staff peeved Indian board officials by disallowing them pavilion passes. Incensed, NKP Salve, IS Bindra and Jagmohan Dalmiya decided that it was best not to travel to England for the next World Cup. Instead, bring the event home!
The period after 1983 saw a massive increase in popularity of one-day cricket in the subcontinent — boosted by India’s success in the World Cup and Pakistan’s success in the bi-annual Sharjah tournaments. The World Cup took this popularity to obsessive levels as almost the whole country came to a halt to watch the mega event. There were reports that people sacrificed part of their life-long savings to buy television sets. Attendance in schools, colleges and offices thinned as people preferred to stay home! The tournament won sponsorship from Reliance, one of India’s largest companies and the old fashioned “metal” trophy was replaced by a specially prepared diamond studded one.
Nor did the World Cup disappoint fans in terms of excitement — the first match between Australia and India set the trend for the rest of the World Cup as Australia edged out India by 1 run in a high scoring thriller. Five of the preliminary group matches were edge of the seat thrillers decided in the last over— West Indies being the casualty in two of them conceding 15 runs in the last over to lose by one wicket to Pakistan and conceding 13 runs in the last over to lose to England. A dejected West Indies skipper Viv Richards was seen lying flat on his back after the back to back heartbreaking defeats more or less ended his hopes of making up for his 1983 World Cup ‘harakiri’.
The home teams, India and Pakistan, cruised along with impressive wins at the end of the group stage. India trounced Australia by 53 runs on Diwali eve as the fans lit the Ferozeshah Kotla stadium in Delhi with firecrackers. The stage looked all set for the ultimate showdown— an India v/s Pakistan clash in front of 100,000 Calcutta spectators!
But even as India and Pakistan grabbed the limelight during the group matches, the keen observers of the game couldn’t help but notice Australia’s quite and efficient advance to the semifinal. They had won two of the closest games in the World Cup with the “ice-cool” 22-year-old Steve Waugh at the helm in the death situations of both the games. Pakistan probably didn’t notice nor did they seemed prepared for the home-crowd pressure as it’s young seam bowlers, Wasim Akram and Salim Jaffer got off to a faulty start in the semi-final. The 34-year-old Pakistan skipper Imran who had announced his retirement after the World Cup used all his bowling experience to bring the momentum back to Pakistan, but made a costly miscalculation when he judged that the innings will be only 49 overs, not 50, leaving the inexperienced Salim Jaffer to bowl to Steve Waugh in the last over. Waugh smashed 18 of the last over taking the target over the psychological barrier of 250 runs to 267 and the margin of the win was coincidentally 18 runs!
Pakistan’s defeat made India the firm favourites to win. But again, one-day cricket had evolved into a game of strategies and India seemed just a bit behind. The English batsmen practiced the sweep shots for hours in the nets to tackle the Indian left-arm spin pair of Maninder Singh and Ravi Shastri. Indian think tank was taken unawares by the excessive use of the sweep shot by Graham Gooch and for some unexplainable reasons, didn’t set the field to stop Gooch from scoring of the sweep shot. The Indians seemed to think that sooner or later Gooch would “missweep”, which he did, but after scoring 115 runs! Still, a target of 255 looked well within reach of the in-form Indian batsmen and with 52 runs to win in 9 overs, an Indian win looked likely. But Azhar, batting at 64 missed a paddle-sweep of Eddie Hemmings in front of the stumps triggering a collapse that ended India’s World Cup dream in just a few more minutes.
If Gooch swept England to the world cup final, it can be said that the skipper Mike Gatting “reverse” swept England out of the World Cup final. Chasing 254, England looked in control at 135/2 with Gatting well set at 41 in 45 balls. The Australian skipper came on to bowl and Mike Gatting chose to play the dangerous reverse sweep of his first ball — a shot that looks cheeky if it comes off, but deserves a slap on the cheek if it doesn’t. Sadly for Gatting, the ball just ballooned in the air to be caught behind the wicket. Gatting’s season of miseries had begun! Australia toughened by its success in close matches earlier in the World Cup held its nerves to win the finals by 7 runs. The man at the helm in all these wins was the young Steve Waugh who took the crucial wickets of Allan Lamb and DeFreitas to squeeze the narrowest win ever in a World Cup final for Australia.
World Cup 1992
The World Cup finally reached Australia in 1992 at a time when satellite TV had just become a household item. As a result, it became the 1 World Cup beamed on television across the entire world. With Channel 9 covering the event, the television coverage was sure to be the best ever for a World Cup. Indeed, a fantastic event to watch on TV, but sadly for the Australian board, it also meant that too many people preferred to watch the event on TV. The World Cup attendance was an abysmal low compared to the previous World Cups held in England and India/Pakistan not the least helped by the woeful performance by the home team. The last-minute entry of the South African team that had been banned for 22 years due to its government racial segregation policies was nevertheless the star attraction for cricket fans who had eagerly waited for their re-entry into world cricket.
The West Indies had declined considerably since the last World Cup and therefore this was the 1 time when they were not among the favorites. Instead, it was the un-fancied New Zealand that set the initial momentum beating the tournament favourites Australia in their first match and won 7 matches on the trot. NZ made up for its lack of “star players” by unconventional tactics that totally bamboozled the opposition. Australia never recovered from the sight of an unknown off-spinner Deepak Patel opening the bowling and could only take 36 runs in 10 overs of his harmless off-spin. Further, almost every stroke maker in the World Cup found himself shackled by the NZ gentle medium trio of Latham, Larsen and Harris, nicknamed by Ian Botham as Dibbly, Dobbly and Wobbly.
While NZ and England cruised through the early matches, Pakistan was struggling to avoid a major embarrassment. Handicapped by the absence of their main strike bowler Waqar Younis and the shoulder injury to the captain Imran Khan, the team was looking upon Wasim Akram and the younger almost unheard players to rally the team. Nothing seemed to work for them in the first five matches as Pakistan could muster a win in only one of them against the bottom of the ladder Zimbabwe. It came down to a crucial day/night encounter against the home team Australia at Perth and it was here that Imran wore the now famous cornered tiger tee shirt and explained the purpose of the tee shirt to the TV audience. Everything fell together in that crucial game thanks largely to the rookie leg spinner Mushtaq Ahmed who sliced through the formidable Australian middle of Dean Jones, Allan Border and Mark Waugh.
The format of the WC 1992 was the most competitive ever for a World Cup. But the organizers created a major glitch with a diabolical rule for shortening matches disrupted by rain. The ridiculously flawed rule abruptly ended the world cup semi-final match between England and South Africa. South Africa needed 22 runs in 13 balls when 10 minutes of rain held play. On resumption, South Africa’s target was reduced by only 1 run, but the number of overs reduced by 2, leaving them to score 21 runs off the last ball!
Rain had also threatened to ruin the other semifinal between Pakistan and New Zealand, but fortunately for Pakistan, Eden Park, the Auckland stadium was about the only place in the entire city not hit by rain!
New Zealand lost a nail-biting contest to Pakistan after having been dominant for most of the match. Led by a brilliant 91 from Martin Crowe, NZ scored a strong 262/7. In reply, as had happened to many teams before, the Pak middle order batsmen failed to score freely against the gentle medium pacers. The required rate reached over 8 an over when a young Inzamam-ul-Haq played one of the best innings ever seen in a World Cup match— 60 of 37 balls (Dibbly, Dobbly and Wobbly had finally met their match!). The experienced Javed Miandad and the audacious young Pakistani keeper, Moin Khan guided them to a victory.
The final saw the best effort from Pakistan in the entire tournament— it was clear that they had peaked as the tournament progressed while England had ‘tanked’. The England all-rounders, Botham, DeFreitas, Reeve and Lewis, all part bowlers and part batsmen failed to deliver in either department. Pakistan set up a good total of 249 runs with the help of a well-planned 136 runs partnership between Imran and Miandad and some late slogging by Inzamam and Wasim Akram. It was too much of a task for England against an inform Pak bowling of Wasim Akram, Aquib Javed and Mushtaq Ahmed all of whom were at their best that day. A valiant partnership of 72 runs between Allan Lamb and Neil Fairbrother gave England brief hopes of a victory, but Wasim Akram’s back to back blows with unplayable deliveries to Lamb and Chris Lewis sealed the Cup for Pakistan.
The match was the last for Imran Khan, a fitting end to his illustrious career.
World Cup 1996
By the time the World Cup ended, many bowlers wished they had not seen Jayasuriya and the others at all!
The duo of Dav Whatmore, the manager and Arjuna Ranatunga, the captain of Sri Lankan team combined to lead the previous World Cups’ minnows to an almost perfect win. Sri Lanka won all its matches by huge margins in what turned out to be a near perfect performance. Not since West Indies in 1979 had a team dominated a World Cup as much as Sri Lanka did in 1996.
The first team to bear the brunt of Sri Lanka’s batting prowess was India in a group match at Delhi. After setting up a total of 272 runs, Azhar’s men would have been reasonably confident of scoring yet another win against Sri Lanka, a team they had dominated for over 10 years. But the first 30 minutes of the Sri Lankan innings left the Indians absolutely shell shocked — Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana whipped the Indian opening bowler Manoj Prabhakar for 47 runs in 4 overs. The short boundaries of the Kotla ground didn’t look sufficient to reign in Jayasuriya and the 15 over field restriction rule left the bowlers at his mercy.
India clashed with Sri Lanka again in the semi-final at Calcutta — this time they did have a strategy to curtail the Sri Lankan batting and that was by bowling first! Which turned out to be the case of fixing one hole and falling into a bigger one as the under prepared wicket crumbled by the time it was India’s turn to bat.
A day after India’s fiasco, West Indies and Australia played out a classic at Mohali. The Windies had overcome a slow start to the world cup to defeat the tournament favourites South Africa in the quarterfinal. They carried the momentum to the semi-final as Ambrose-Bishop had Australia reeling at 15/4 with the Waugh twins back in the pavilion. Stuart Law and the dependable Michael Bevan rallied Australia to a modest 207 runs. West Indies looked headed for a facile win when Chanderpaul brought them to within 43 runs with 7 wickets in hand. The Australian skipper Mark Taylor threw in the last throw of the dice and brought all but two of his fielders into the 30 yard circle, inviting the rock solid Chanderpaul to hit McGrath over the top. Chanderpaul took the bait, only to hole out to Fleming at mid-off. The match turned on its head as McGrath soon scalped another wicket and Warne came back to bowl his last few overs. Warne’s form had been indifferent through the world cup, but he turned out his best when it matters the most. His flippers that darted off the wicket bamboozled the remaining West Indian batsmen Jimmy Adams and Ian Bishop were trapped lbw playing back to the flippers. Two wickets fell in the last over as Windies suffered a heartbreaking loss by 5 runs and Australia completed one of the greatest ever comebacks.
But even Australia couldn’t stop the Sri Lankan batting juggernaut in the finals. Australia failed to cash on to a fine start and mustered only 241 runs. Despite early breaks by the Australian bowlers, the result was never in doubt as Aravinda DeSilva guided Sri Lanka to an easy 7 wicket win with an unbeaten 107, only the 3 century in a World Cup final and the 1 since Viv Richards in 1979.
World Cup 1999
Gibbs’ expression suggested that he believed what Waugh had said— and the comments proved to be prophetic as Australia came from behind to beat South Africa in that game, defeated them again in the semi-final and thrashed Pakistan in the finals to win the World Cup.
The World Cup 1999 witnessed an amazing line of bowlers from all sides. Australia had Warne and McGrath, Pakistan team consisted of Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim Akram and Saqlain Muhhtaq while South African team had Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock. It was clear that these bowlers would extract the best out of the batsmen.
Australia, Pakistan and South Africa proved themselves well ahead of the pack and not surprisingly, all three made it to the semi-final. Australia almost didn’t as the tournament organizers again blundered while preparing the world cup format. They needed a win against South Africa in their last “super-six” match and at 3/48 the chances were slim. However, Steve Waugh carried Australia to the target with two balls to spare to set up a semi-final clash against South Africa again four days later.
The Australia-South Africa semi-final match is often regarded as the most thrilling World Cup match ever played. Put into bat, Australia faced the brunt of some fantastic fast bowling from Donald and Pollock, both at the peak of their careers as they took 9 wickets between them to bowl out Australia for a modest 213 runs. South Africa seemed to be cruising along at 48/0 in 12 overs — but that was before Shane Warne came to bowl!
Warne had narrowly made it to the World Cup squad after a poor series in West Indies when he was dropped from the team for the last test. As with the World Cup 1996, his form was somewhat indifferent leading up to the semi-final. But it only took him 8 balls to prove his worth — in a space of 8 deliveries, he took 3 South African wickets, two of them from balls that turned more than a feet leaving South Africa reeling at 53/3. Warne also claimed Kallis in his last over to finish with spells of 10-4-25-4. Fortunes fluctuated till the last over when South Africa was left with 9 to win with one wicket in hand, but Lance Klusener, the “man of the tournament” on strike against Damien Fleming.
Klusener drove first ball cleanly through covers for 4 runs — 5 needed off 5. Klusener followed up with another booming off-drive off the 2nd ball that raced to the boundary. The scores were tied with Australia the winner in case of a tie. Predictably, all 11 fielders were brought into the circle to stop the single. The 3rd ball of the over almost had the non-striker Donald being run-out as he backed too far. Even though Donald survived that run-out chance, it played a hand in his dismissal on the next ball — Klusener drove to mid-off and set of for a quick single. Tragedy struck South Africa, as Donald, as if trying to mend his mistake on the previous ball, made a club level mistake by turning around to find the ball instead of just keeping an eye contact with his batting partner. Both the batsmen ended at the same end and upon that Donald dropped his bat. Even though the throw reached the wrong end, it didn’t matter, as Donald had no chance to make his ground before Gilchrist whipped the bails. As for Klusener, he didn’t turn back to see what happened, but kept sprinting till the pavilion.
Australia went on to win the World Cup by beating Pakistan in the most one-sided final ever. The unreliable Pakistani batting collapsed to 132 all out and in reply Australia cruised home in 20 overs with 8 wickets in hand. Warne was the man of the match again for yet another 4-wicket haul.
World Cup 2003
Ponting showed the world what he meant by ‘the best’ and it was more than enough. Since most of you would have followed the 2003 edition, we wouldn’t discuss this at length. But needless to say, this World Cup belonged to India and Australia, partly because some of the superpowers were simply not there at the Cup!
Australia always looked at the top right from the beginning, except in a few of matches, against Pakistan for a moment before Andrew Symonds rescued them; against England, before Bichel turned the tide; and against New Zealand, before they regrouped to thwart Shane Bond’s challenge. India, on the other hand, got off to a poor start going down to Australia in spineless fashion. It followed a horrible tour of New Zealand. But that was it, and after getting the measure of Pakistan, India never looked back. There were stunning spells, like of Ashish Nehra, who picked six wickets against England, special innings, like Tendulkar’s 98 against Pakistan and magical fielding, like of Yuvraj and Kaif.
Of course, the team that surprised most was Kenya, who after beating Sri Lanka at home and getting points from New Zealand following a boycott by the Pacific nation, managed to go through the super six. From there with points against Lanka and Zimbabwe, who they had also beaten, already in the kitty, managed to enter the semi-finals.
In a way, the 2003 Cup, tipped as one of a kind due to the extravagant opening ceremony, and the fact that it was the first time Africa was hosting a tournament, showcased substandard cricket. It was important for South Africa as they had suffered from lack of cricket due to apartheid. But, the biggest cricket extravaganza flattered to deceive.
England, South Africa, Pakistan and the West Indies could not qualify for the super sixes and instead, Kenya, Zimbabwe, who also benefited from opposition’s boycott, New Zealand and an average-looking Sri Lanka competed with India and Australia in the super sixes. India and Australia topped the super six table. Kenya were to play India, while Australia faced Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka-Australia semifinal was boring if nothing else. After the Aussies were restricted to 212 in their 50 overs, Sri Lanka got off to a poor start. They were soon 76 for 7 and looking down the barrel. Chaminda Vaas and Kumar Sangakkara did try to make a match of it but it was too much. Anyways, whatever tussle that remained was buried by the rains and Australia won by 48 runs through Duckworth-Lewis method.
In the second semis, India faced Kenya. Honestly, it was a cakewalk. India piled up 270 runs with century from Sourav Ganguly and 83 from Sachin Tendulkar. In reply, Kenya folded for just 179 runs. They were never in the match after being 62 for 5.
The final proved an anti-climax. Australia, particularly Ricky Ponting, hammered the Indian bowlers and posted 359 for 2 in 50 overs. Ponting made 140 not out, while Damien Martyn made 88 not out. India never looked in the hunt and for once even Sachin Tendulkar failed. The maestro fell for four and took his tournament tally to 673, enough to win him the player of the series award, but not enough to get his team on the track. India floundered and fell short by 125 runs even though Virender Sehwag fought a lone battle.
World Cup 2007
The lessons of 1999 and 2003 were learned and so the Super Eights qualified from four groups of four. However, unexpectedly India and Pakistan failed to go past the first round, with Bangladesh and Ireland taking their places. The only points carried forward were the ones against the other qualifiers from the same group, which at least should have given the second round some meaning. This was also the first World Cup to feature power-plays.
Pakistan was eliminated in their second game, after they lost to Ireland by three wickets. The result was entirely overshadowed by the death of Pakistan’s coach, Bob Woolmer, hours later. India, meanwhile, were beaten by Bangladesh and then sent packing by Sri Lanka. New Zealand and England went through from Group C — England courtesy of wins over Canada and Kenya — while Australia and South Africa barely broke sweat in a group containing Scotland and the Netherlands. Bangladesh’s and Ireland’s qualification meant that, in reality, the semi-finals were between four of six, and with England and the hosts looking all at sea, the excitement was minimal. Of 24 games only three were remotely tense; the best being the second and the last, South Africa v Sri Lanka and a meaningless clash between England and West Indies which was also special as it was Brian Lara’s last.
The tournament was also marred by poor turnouts as the organizers charged steep rates for entry and forbade spectators from bringing in musical instruments. Too many games, and the presence of too many weak teams in the Super Eights, contributed to dull cricket all the way. The final ended in darkness with the umpires and match referee showing a poor grasp of the rules. Thus, a farcical finish underlined how poorly the entire event was organized.
In the semifinals, Sri Lanka beat New Zealand by 81 runs and Australia thrashed South Africa, who once again choked, crashing to 27 for 5 before limping to 149.
The best two sides made the final. This was the first World Cup final to be a repeat — the sides previously met in the 1996 World Cup final, which Sri Lanka won. Australia has won every World Cup match against Sri Lanka apart from that loss. The match was Sri Lanka’s second World Cup final appearance and Australia’s sixth, their fourth in a row.
Rickey Ponting won the toss and elected to bat. However, the start of play was delayed due to rain, and the match was reduced to 38 overs per side. Adam Gilchrist played an incredible innings of 149 off 104 balls — the highest for any batsman in a World Cup final — to give Australia an imposing total of 281 for 4 in 38 overs going in to the break. Batting with a squash ball in your glove can be a painful experience, but not for Gilchrist. The result was perhaps the best performance in a World Cup final. This was his third scene-stealer in consecutive World Cup finals. Against Pakistan at Lord’s in 1999, he cracked 54 from 36 balls; four years later against India in Johannesburg, he made 57 from 48. But nothing quite compared to this.
Once the sun had come out and Gilchrist had gauged the pace and bounce of a rock-hard and true surface, there was no reining him — or Australia — in. He set the tone by clubbing Chaminda Vaas for four and six in the second over and never looked back. With flashing hands and fast feet, Tillakaratne Dilshan was deposited along the same straight line twice in one over, one longer than the next. Muttiah Muralitharan was slog-swept and Sanath Jayasuriya was pulled. Dilhara Fernando put down a return chance when Gilchrist was on 31, and the next three deliveries were clubbed for four, four and six. Gilchrist brought up his 15th ODI hundred from just 72 balls with a drilled four over long-off, and thereafter heaved through the line with impunity, trusting his eye, the surface and the fact that the fight had gone out of his opponents.
Eight sixes was achievement enough, but just as eye-catching were the number of fours he hit in the air, swiveling and sashaying with his familiar high-handle grip. There was a touch of the super-heroic about it. The ground is for normal men, he seemed to be saying. By the time Gilchrist was finished, there was little doubt about the place of his innings in the pantheon of innings played in World Cup finals, and that list included masterpieces by Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Aravinda de Silva, and Ricky Ponting.
Sri Lanka chased gamely, and while Kumar Sangakkara and Sanath Jayasuriya were in — they added 116 — they were in with a shout. But both fell in quick succession and then farce descended in the gloom. The umpires left the field for bad light as Australia celebrated, but then the officials, amid scenes which left cricket a laughing stock, brought the players back on. By the end nobody could see what was happening in the middle.
Australia won the tournament undefeated, concluding a streak of 29 World Cup games without a loss.Australian bowler Glenn McGrath was named ‘Player of the Series’.
World Cup 1975
By 1975, a World Cup event was taking place in every major sport of the world, except cricket. The only attempt ever at holding a World Cup like event was in 1912 when England, Australia and South Africa played a Test triangular. The tournament was a damp squib and the experiment never repeated. However, the international ban on South Africa from 1970 opened a gap in England’s schedule as typically South Africa toured England once in 4-5 years. The gap was initially filled in 1970 by a lacklustre series between England and ‘Rest of the World’. Better sense prevailed 5 years later when ICC finally caught up with the rest of the sporting world when it organized cricket’s first World Cup.
1975 was a time when a demographic change was taking place in England with the growing West Indian and Asian population that wasn’t shy of expressing its culture in public. The World Cup timed perfectly with these cultural changes in England as the noisy and colourful West Indian fans packed the stadiums with drums, bands and whistles giving it a feeling of a Caribbean carnival rather than a white collared colonial game watched by a crowd with impeccable “manners” and dressed in ties and suites.
The World Cup commenced with England, the pre-tournament favorites, playing India. And it made news right away — not because the pre-tournament favourites England won easily by 202 runs, but because a batsman from their opposite team played what is still the most bizarre one-day innings — Sunil Gavaskar batted for all the 60 overs to score an unbeaten thirty-six.
As the tournament progressed, the cricket fans were treated to the kind of excitement they hadn’t ever experienced in test matches. In one of the preliminary group matches, West Indies beat Pakistan by one wicket with two balls to spare after their last 2 wickets had added 110 runs between them. In another memorable incident, West Indian batsman Alvin Kalicharan took on Lillee’s “bouncer challenge” by hooking and pulling him for 39 runs in just 10 balls. West Indies easily won its semifinal match against New Zealand while Australia edged out England by 4 wickets in a low-scoring semifinal thriller after being down to 39/6 at one stage. The stage was set for the ultimate showdown at Lord’s on June 21, the longest day of the year.
The mid-summer day proved to be an appropriate choice for the WC final, as it took almost the entire length of the day to complete the match. The match started at 11:00 am and ended at 8:42 pm. Australia won the toss and chose to bowl on a flat wicket— one of the many decisions they took during the day that reflected their lack of understanding of the one-day game. Clive Lloyd, the West Indies skipper hammered 102 in just 85 balls to set up a huge total of 291/8. The target looked too hot for the Australians, made worse by 3 run-outs, including those of the Chappel brothers at the hands of a young Viv Richards, who in later years was to make a mark in a World Cup final with his bat. At 233/9, still almost 60 runs short, it looked all over for Australia, at least to the thousands of West Indian fans who lined up at the boundary taking up the “on your marks” position each time a ball was bowled. But the Australian last pair of Lillee-Thommo defied the West Indian bowlers for about 30 minutes bringing the Australian total to within 26 with two overs to spare when the ultimate drama unfolded:
Thomson flicked the very 1 ball of the penultimate over to the long leg boundary and barely made the 2nd run before the bails were whipped off by the keeper. The West Indian fans who had anxiously been waiting for half an hour to invade the ground to celebrate their team’s win couldn’t hold any longer and ran into the field. Soon they realized that the umpire hadn’t given any run out decision and went back. But they were back a ball later when Thomson was caught at covers as one didn't need to wait for the umpire’s decision for a clean catch— except that they didn't realize that it was a no-ball!
The crowd engulfed the entire ground, except for the pitch where Lillee-Thomson could be spotted frantically sprinting up and down almost oblivious to the pandemonium in the rest of the ground. Apparently, the ball had been lost in the crowd and the pair felt that they could “steal” an unlikely win by running all the 20 or so runs! Once the order was restored, Thommo went up to the umpire to ask how many runs they had scored – “Two” was the umpire Spencer’s reply. A shocked Thompson threw the bat on the ground and cried: We have been running up and down all afternoon and all you give us is two runs!” A few moments later, the last wicket did fall and this time there were no doubts about it as all the players sprinted to the pavilion, desperately trying to beat the invading crowd. The last images seen on television were those of Thomson stripping off his pads on the ground before making his desperate run to the pavilion. Some others weren’t as fortunate — umpire Dickie Bird lost his sweater and hat while a West Indian fielder had his boots snatched. The carnival was over and the West Indians fans wanted to take a piece of it back with them!
A year later, while travelling on a bus in London, umpire Dickie Bird noticed a bus conductor of West Indian origin wearing a hat that looked remarkably familiar. When he asked about the hat, the bus conductor replied, “Man, have you heard of Dickie Bird? I was there at the world cup final. We all ran into the field, I won the race, and took the hat from his head”.
World Cup 1979
“Kingdom” or Collis King, the new batsman at the crease to Viv Richards (Smokey) in the middle of a tense moment during the West Indies innings of the WC final when they were struggling at 92/4. “Sir Geoffrey Boycott”, a part-time bowler had just made the mistake of carrying a smirk while bowling at the West Indian batsman. The response was that Collis King smashed 86 runs in 50 minutes off 67 balls wiping out the smirk from Boycott’s face for good. West Indies piled up 286 and England didn’t even come close, giving West Indies their second successive World Cup win.
Besides, the Collis King special, there were two other memorable moments during the WC 1979 final. On the last ball of the West Indian innings, Viv Richards, moved totally over to the off-stump, (exposing his middle and off) and flicked the ball for a six. During England’s chase, Clive Lloyd, the West Indian captain dropped the simplest of chances of Geoff Boycott. While Lloyd has always denied that the drop was intentional, it is hard to believe that it wasn’t — Boycott had consumed over a 100 balls for his half-century, which opponent would have liked to take his wicket?
West Indies won the World Cup 1979 in a canter. The world cricket was still split because of the Packer affair and as a result all of Australia’s top players and some of England’s players were banned from playing for their teams leaving the already invincible West Indies with no credible opponents. The tournament lacked the excitement of the previous World Cup or any of the World Cups that followed, especially if you are an Indian fan as the team lost all its three matches by wide margins, including a humiliating loss to Sri Lanka that wasn’t even recognized as a Test playing nation at that time.
World Cup 1983
Did he say India? But this is “foot in the mouth” Kim Hughes, isn’t it?
Except that had Kim Hughes put his money where his mouth is, he would have won 4,000 pounds on a 100-pound bet as the odds for an Indian win had dropped to 1:40 during the world cup final!
Not even the most optimistic of Indian fans would have taken Kim Hughes’ prediction seriously. This was a team that had only won a single match out of six in the past World Cups and that too against a team comprising of club cricketers from East African countries. Their recent one-day record was not much to write home about as WI and Pakistan had beaten them 3-1 and 5-1 respectively on recent tours. Asides from Kapil Dev, the all-rounders were Madan Lal, an innocuous medium pacer, the dibbly-dobbly Roger Binny more noticeable for his portly figure than any achievement on the field, Kirti Azad a domestic bully, Balwinder Singh Sandhu and a raw Ravi Shastri. Surely, the team couldn’t pose a threat to England or West Indies.
But there was a catch — most of the preliminary matches were played on unpredictable county wickets where bowlers like Binny and Madan Lal could create havoc. As it turned out, Binny topped the wicket takers with 18 wickets and Madan Lal followed closely behind with 17. The presence of all-rounders meant that India batted deeper than any other team and could stretch the score by 20-30 runs in any game (even the No. 11 batsman, Sandhu had two Test half centuries to his name).
The World Cup had an improved format over the previous World Cups as each team played six preliminary group matches. It was a more competitive World Cup than it’s preceding ones, as there were no minnows. Even Zimbabwe, the bottom team beat the fancied Australia in it’s first match and went on to run India very close in another match. West Indies started as clear favourites but were in for a shock in their first match when India beat them by 35 runs as Binny and Madan Lal ran through their top and middle order. The Windies recovered in the subsequent matches winning all their group matches and the semifinal comfortably. Whereas India slipped after a fine start, losing by big margins to Australia and West Indies as well as facing the barrel at 17/5 while batting first against Zimbabwe. Enter Kapil Dev in a situation when almost any other cricketer would have tried to minimize the damage. Instead, Kapil took the attack to the opposition scoring 175 runs in 135 balls including 6 sixes to the long-on/long-off boundaries. The score of 266 was too much for the inexperienced Zimbabwe and India had made one of the most remarkable recoveries from which there was no turning back. India played Australia next for a place in the semifinal and once again the tail wagged stretching the total to a healthy 247 and the Indian medium-pacers (Binny, Madan Lal and Sandhu) ran through the opposite batting.
The host England had done little wrong during the preliminary stage and had been the only team to remain unchanged for the whole of the group matches. Their main bowlers were in top form while their batsmen David Gower and Graeme Fowler were close to the top in batting averages for the World Cup. The match started on a top note with England reaching 84/1 in just over 20 overs. Yet, the wobbly Mohinder Amarnath and Kirti Azad inexplicably tied down the much-fancied middle-order. Ian Botham, one of the fiercest stroke players of the game at that time scored only 6 runs in 26 balls and the run-rate dropped to about 3.5 runs an over. After a cautious start, Indian romped home to the target of 214 runs helped by stabilizing knocks in the middle-order by Mohinder Amarnath and Yashpal Sharma and a 32 ball half century from Sandeep Patil — arguably the best cameo of the tournament!
June 25, 1983 is a day permanently etched in the memory of all Indian cricket fans. Millions of Indians glued to the television to watch a David v/s Goliath encounter, anticipating a quick and easy win for the Windies. And as India slumped to 7/131 while batting first, it looked like the Cinderella like run had finally come. The bookies were offering 1:40 for an India win which in the hindsight was premature as the wicket was under prepared and therefore suitable for the tidy Indian medium pacers and the Indian tail had shown the ability to “wag” throughout the World Cup. Helped by useful knocks from the bottom three (Madan Lal, Kirmani and Sandhu), India edged to a respectable 183 runs.
The West Indies got off to a bad start when Greenidge shouldered his arms to a huge in-swinger from Sandhu. Enter Viv Richards, the hero of the past two World Cups! Within no time, he began to show his contempt for the Indian medium pace attack by thrashing 32 runs in 28 balls when the situation suggested that he “graft” his innings instead. With the score at 65/2 and West Indies coasting along, Richards mistimed an across the line drive over midwicket and millions of Indians held their breath as Kapil ran a long way backwards towards the boundary to take an amazing catch. Suddenly there was panic in the West Indian camp and disastrous middle-order collapse reduced the Windies to 76/6. Dujon and Marshall revived the team’s fortunes with a patient 43 runs stand, but there was no escape from Mohinder Amarnath’s dead accurate seam bowling as he dismissed the tail with figures of 3/12 in 7 overs. The last wicket fell at 143, aptly to Mohinder Amarnath who was adjudged the Man of the match for both the semifinal and the final. A lasting image from the World Cup was that of the dejected West Indian fans (and players), some openly weeping. It was reminiscent of Brazil's defeat in the 1982 FIFA World Cup when their fans looked inconsolable after the defeat. However, for the Indian fans, the cricket carnival had just begun— and is still going strong 28 years later!
World Cup 1987
Over time the world became familiar with “Ice-cool” Steve Waugh and company raising their standard of play when it matters the most and holding their nerves in tense situations. This was however the 1 occasion when this ability was witnessed. Australia outsmarted fancied opponents Pakistan and England in closely fought semifinal and final to win their first World Cup.
The World Cup 1983 had created a historic moment for India not just for the obvious reason that India won it, but also for another reason — the Lord’s staff peeved Indian board officials by disallowing them pavilion passes. Incensed, NKP Salve, IS Bindra and Jagmohan Dalmiya decided that it was best not to travel to England for the next World Cup. Instead, bring the event home!
The period after 1983 saw a massive increase in popularity of one-day cricket in the subcontinent — boosted by India’s success in the World Cup and Pakistan’s success in the bi-annual Sharjah tournaments. The World Cup took this popularity to obsessive levels as almost the whole country came to a halt to watch the mega event. There were reports that people sacrificed part of their life-long savings to buy television sets. Attendance in schools, colleges and offices thinned as people preferred to stay home! The tournament won sponsorship from Reliance, one of India’s largest companies and the old fashioned “metal” trophy was replaced by a specially prepared diamond studded one.
Nor did the World Cup disappoint fans in terms of excitement — the first match between Australia and India set the trend for the rest of the World Cup as Australia edged out India by 1 run in a high scoring thriller. Five of the preliminary group matches were edge of the seat thrillers decided in the last over— West Indies being the casualty in two of them conceding 15 runs in the last over to lose by one wicket to Pakistan and conceding 13 runs in the last over to lose to England. A dejected West Indies skipper Viv Richards was seen lying flat on his back after the back to back heartbreaking defeats more or less ended his hopes of making up for his 1983 World Cup ‘harakiri’.
The home teams, India and Pakistan, cruised along with impressive wins at the end of the group stage. India trounced Australia by 53 runs on Diwali eve as the fans lit the Ferozeshah Kotla stadium in Delhi with firecrackers. The stage looked all set for the ultimate showdown— an India v/s Pakistan clash in front of 100,000 Calcutta spectators!
But even as India and Pakistan grabbed the limelight during the group matches, the keen observers of the game couldn’t help but notice Australia’s quite and efficient advance to the semifinal. They had won two of the closest games in the World Cup with the “ice-cool” 22-year-old Steve Waugh at the helm in the death situations of both the games. Pakistan probably didn’t notice nor did they seemed prepared for the home-crowd pressure as it’s young seam bowlers, Wasim Akram and Salim Jaffer got off to a faulty start in the semi-final. The 34-year-old Pakistan skipper Imran who had announced his retirement after the World Cup used all his bowling experience to bring the momentum back to Pakistan, but made a costly miscalculation when he judged that the innings will be only 49 overs, not 50, leaving the inexperienced Salim Jaffer to bowl to Steve Waugh in the last over. Waugh smashed 18 of the last over taking the target over the psychological barrier of 250 runs to 267 and the margin of the win was coincidentally 18 runs!
Pakistan’s defeat made India the firm favourites to win. But again, one-day cricket had evolved into a game of strategies and India seemed just a bit behind. The English batsmen practiced the sweep shots for hours in the nets to tackle the Indian left-arm spin pair of Maninder Singh and Ravi Shastri. Indian think tank was taken unawares by the excessive use of the sweep shot by Graham Gooch and for some unexplainable reasons, didn’t set the field to stop Gooch from scoring of the sweep shot. The Indians seemed to think that sooner or later Gooch would “missweep”, which he did, but after scoring 115 runs! Still, a target of 255 looked well within reach of the in-form Indian batsmen and with 52 runs to win in 9 overs, an Indian win looked likely. But Azhar, batting at 64 missed a paddle-sweep of Eddie Hemmings in front of the stumps triggering a collapse that ended India’s World Cup dream in just a few more minutes.
If Gooch swept England to the world cup final, it can be said that the skipper Mike Gatting “reverse” swept England out of the World Cup final. Chasing 254, England looked in control at 135/2 with Gatting well set at 41 in 45 balls. The Australian skipper came on to bowl and Mike Gatting chose to play the dangerous reverse sweep of his first ball — a shot that looks cheeky if it comes off, but deserves a slap on the cheek if it doesn’t. Sadly for Gatting, the ball just ballooned in the air to be caught behind the wicket. Gatting’s season of miseries had begun! Australia toughened by its success in close matches earlier in the World Cup held its nerves to win the finals by 7 runs. The man at the helm in all these wins was the young Steve Waugh who took the crucial wickets of Allan Lamb and DeFreitas to squeeze the narrowest win ever in a World Cup final for Australia.
World Cup 1992
The World Cup finally reached Australia in 1992 at a time when satellite TV had just become a household item. As a result, it became the 1 World Cup beamed on television across the entire world. With Channel 9 covering the event, the television coverage was sure to be the best ever for a World Cup. Indeed, a fantastic event to watch on TV, but sadly for the Australian board, it also meant that too many people preferred to watch the event on TV. The World Cup attendance was an abysmal low compared to the previous World Cups held in England and India/Pakistan not the least helped by the woeful performance by the home team. The last-minute entry of the South African team that had been banned for 22 years due to its government racial segregation policies was nevertheless the star attraction for cricket fans who had eagerly waited for their re-entry into world cricket.
The West Indies had declined considerably since the last World Cup and therefore this was the 1 time when they were not among the favorites. Instead, it was the un-fancied New Zealand that set the initial momentum beating the tournament favourites Australia in their first match and won 7 matches on the trot. NZ made up for its lack of “star players” by unconventional tactics that totally bamboozled the opposition. Australia never recovered from the sight of an unknown off-spinner Deepak Patel opening the bowling and could only take 36 runs in 10 overs of his harmless off-spin. Further, almost every stroke maker in the World Cup found himself shackled by the NZ gentle medium trio of Latham, Larsen and Harris, nicknamed by Ian Botham as Dibbly, Dobbly and Wobbly.
While NZ and England cruised through the early matches, Pakistan was struggling to avoid a major embarrassment. Handicapped by the absence of their main strike bowler Waqar Younis and the shoulder injury to the captain Imran Khan, the team was looking upon Wasim Akram and the younger almost unheard players to rally the team. Nothing seemed to work for them in the first five matches as Pakistan could muster a win in only one of them against the bottom of the ladder Zimbabwe. It came down to a crucial day/night encounter against the home team Australia at Perth and it was here that Imran wore the now famous cornered tiger tee shirt and explained the purpose of the tee shirt to the TV audience. Everything fell together in that crucial game thanks largely to the rookie leg spinner Mushtaq Ahmed who sliced through the formidable Australian middle of Dean Jones, Allan Border and Mark Waugh.
The format of the WC 1992 was the most competitive ever for a World Cup. But the organizers created a major glitch with a diabolical rule for shortening matches disrupted by rain. The ridiculously flawed rule abruptly ended the world cup semi-final match between England and South Africa. South Africa needed 22 runs in 13 balls when 10 minutes of rain held play. On resumption, South Africa’s target was reduced by only 1 run, but the number of overs reduced by 2, leaving them to score 21 runs off the last ball!
Rain had also threatened to ruin the other semifinal between Pakistan and New Zealand, but fortunately for Pakistan, Eden Park, the Auckland stadium was about the only place in the entire city not hit by rain!
New Zealand lost a nail-biting contest to Pakistan after having been dominant for most of the match. Led by a brilliant 91 from Martin Crowe, NZ scored a strong 262/7. In reply, as had happened to many teams before, the Pak middle order batsmen failed to score freely against the gentle medium pacers. The required rate reached over 8 an over when a young Inzamam-ul-Haq played one of the best innings ever seen in a World Cup match— 60 of 37 balls (Dibbly, Dobbly and Wobbly had finally met their match!). The experienced Javed Miandad and the audacious young Pakistani keeper, Moin Khan guided them to a victory.
The final saw the best effort from Pakistan in the entire tournament— it was clear that they had peaked as the tournament progressed while England had ‘tanked’. The England all-rounders, Botham, DeFreitas, Reeve and Lewis, all part bowlers and part batsmen failed to deliver in either department. Pakistan set up a good total of 249 runs with the help of a well-planned 136 runs partnership between Imran and Miandad and some late slogging by Inzamam and Wasim Akram. It was too much of a task for England against an inform Pak bowling of Wasim Akram, Aquib Javed and Mushtaq Ahmed all of whom were at their best that day. A valiant partnership of 72 runs between Allan Lamb and Neil Fairbrother gave England brief hopes of a victory, but Wasim Akram’s back to back blows with unplayable deliveries to Lamb and Chris Lewis sealed the Cup for Pakistan.
The match was the last for Imran Khan, a fitting end to his illustrious career.
World Cup 1996
By the time the World Cup ended, many bowlers wished they had not seen Jayasuriya and the others at all!
The duo of Dav Whatmore, the manager and Arjuna Ranatunga, the captain of Sri Lankan team combined to lead the previous World Cups’ minnows to an almost perfect win. Sri Lanka won all its matches by huge margins in what turned out to be a near perfect performance. Not since West Indies in 1979 had a team dominated a World Cup as much as Sri Lanka did in 1996.
The first team to bear the brunt of Sri Lanka’s batting prowess was India in a group match at Delhi. After setting up a total of 272 runs, Azhar’s men would have been reasonably confident of scoring yet another win against Sri Lanka, a team they had dominated for over 10 years. But the first 30 minutes of the Sri Lankan innings left the Indians absolutely shell shocked — Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana whipped the Indian opening bowler Manoj Prabhakar for 47 runs in 4 overs. The short boundaries of the Kotla ground didn’t look sufficient to reign in Jayasuriya and the 15 over field restriction rule left the bowlers at his mercy.
India clashed with Sri Lanka again in the semi-final at Calcutta — this time they did have a strategy to curtail the Sri Lankan batting and that was by bowling first! Which turned out to be the case of fixing one hole and falling into a bigger one as the under prepared wicket crumbled by the time it was India’s turn to bat.
A day after India’s fiasco, West Indies and Australia played out a classic at Mohali. The Windies had overcome a slow start to the world cup to defeat the tournament favourites South Africa in the quarterfinal. They carried the momentum to the semi-final as Ambrose-Bishop had Australia reeling at 15/4 with the Waugh twins back in the pavilion. Stuart Law and the dependable Michael Bevan rallied Australia to a modest 207 runs. West Indies looked headed for a facile win when Chanderpaul brought them to within 43 runs with 7 wickets in hand. The Australian skipper Mark Taylor threw in the last throw of the dice and brought all but two of his fielders into the 30 yard circle, inviting the rock solid Chanderpaul to hit McGrath over the top. Chanderpaul took the bait, only to hole out to Fleming at mid-off. The match turned on its head as McGrath soon scalped another wicket and Warne came back to bowl his last few overs. Warne’s form had been indifferent through the world cup, but he turned out his best when it matters the most. His flippers that darted off the wicket bamboozled the remaining West Indian batsmen Jimmy Adams and Ian Bishop were trapped lbw playing back to the flippers. Two wickets fell in the last over as Windies suffered a heartbreaking loss by 5 runs and Australia completed one of the greatest ever comebacks.
But even Australia couldn’t stop the Sri Lankan batting juggernaut in the finals. Australia failed to cash on to a fine start and mustered only 241 runs. Despite early breaks by the Australian bowlers, the result was never in doubt as Aravinda DeSilva guided Sri Lanka to an easy 7 wicket win with an unbeaten 107, only the 3 century in a World Cup final and the 1 since Viv Richards in 1979.
World Cup 1999
Gibbs’ expression suggested that he believed what Waugh had said— and the comments proved to be prophetic as Australia came from behind to beat South Africa in that game, defeated them again in the semi-final and thrashed Pakistan in the finals to win the World Cup.
The World Cup 1999 witnessed an amazing line of bowlers from all sides. Australia had Warne and McGrath, Pakistan team consisted of Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim Akram and Saqlain Muhhtaq while South African team had Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock. It was clear that these bowlers would extract the best out of the batsmen.
Australia, Pakistan and South Africa proved themselves well ahead of the pack and not surprisingly, all three made it to the semi-final. Australia almost didn’t as the tournament organizers again blundered while preparing the world cup format. They needed a win against South Africa in their last “super-six” match and at 3/48 the chances were slim. However, Steve Waugh carried Australia to the target with two balls to spare to set up a semi-final clash against South Africa again four days later.
The Australia-South Africa semi-final match is often regarded as the most thrilling World Cup match ever played. Put into bat, Australia faced the brunt of some fantastic fast bowling from Donald and Pollock, both at the peak of their careers as they took 9 wickets between them to bowl out Australia for a modest 213 runs. South Africa seemed to be cruising along at 48/0 in 12 overs — but that was before Shane Warne came to bowl!
Warne had narrowly made it to the World Cup squad after a poor series in West Indies when he was dropped from the team for the last test. As with the World Cup 1996, his form was somewhat indifferent leading up to the semi-final. But it only took him 8 balls to prove his worth — in a space of 8 deliveries, he took 3 South African wickets, two of them from balls that turned more than a feet leaving South Africa reeling at 53/3. Warne also claimed Kallis in his last over to finish with spells of 10-4-25-4. Fortunes fluctuated till the last over when South Africa was left with 9 to win with one wicket in hand, but Lance Klusener, the “man of the tournament” on strike against Damien Fleming.
Klusener drove first ball cleanly through covers for 4 runs — 5 needed off 5. Klusener followed up with another booming off-drive off the 2nd ball that raced to the boundary. The scores were tied with Australia the winner in case of a tie. Predictably, all 11 fielders were brought into the circle to stop the single. The 3rd ball of the over almost had the non-striker Donald being run-out as he backed too far. Even though Donald survived that run-out chance, it played a hand in his dismissal on the next ball — Klusener drove to mid-off and set of for a quick single. Tragedy struck South Africa, as Donald, as if trying to mend his mistake on the previous ball, made a club level mistake by turning around to find the ball instead of just keeping an eye contact with his batting partner. Both the batsmen ended at the same end and upon that Donald dropped his bat. Even though the throw reached the wrong end, it didn’t matter, as Donald had no chance to make his ground before Gilchrist whipped the bails. As for Klusener, he didn’t turn back to see what happened, but kept sprinting till the pavilion.
Australia went on to win the World Cup by beating Pakistan in the most one-sided final ever. The unreliable Pakistani batting collapsed to 132 all out and in reply Australia cruised home in 20 overs with 8 wickets in hand. Warne was the man of the match again for yet another 4-wicket haul.
World Cup 2003
Ponting showed the world what he meant by ‘the best’ and it was more than enough. Since most of you would have followed the 2003 edition, we wouldn’t discuss this at length. But needless to say, this World Cup belonged to India and Australia, partly because some of the superpowers were simply not there at the Cup!
Australia always looked at the top right from the beginning, except in a few of matches, against Pakistan for a moment before Andrew Symonds rescued them; against England, before Bichel turned the tide; and against New Zealand, before they regrouped to thwart Shane Bond’s challenge. India, on the other hand, got off to a poor start going down to Australia in spineless fashion. It followed a horrible tour of New Zealand. But that was it, and after getting the measure of Pakistan, India never looked back. There were stunning spells, like of Ashish Nehra, who picked six wickets against England, special innings, like Tendulkar’s 98 against Pakistan and magical fielding, like of Yuvraj and Kaif.
Of course, the team that surprised most was Kenya, who after beating Sri Lanka at home and getting points from New Zealand following a boycott by the Pacific nation, managed to go through the super six. From there with points against Lanka and Zimbabwe, who they had also beaten, already in the kitty, managed to enter the semi-finals.
In a way, the 2003 Cup, tipped as one of a kind due to the extravagant opening ceremony, and the fact that it was the first time Africa was hosting a tournament, showcased substandard cricket. It was important for South Africa as they had suffered from lack of cricket due to apartheid. But, the biggest cricket extravaganza flattered to deceive.
England, South Africa, Pakistan and the West Indies could not qualify for the super sixes and instead, Kenya, Zimbabwe, who also benefited from opposition’s boycott, New Zealand and an average-looking Sri Lanka competed with India and Australia in the super sixes. India and Australia topped the super six table. Kenya were to play India, while Australia faced Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka-Australia semifinal was boring if nothing else. After the Aussies were restricted to 212 in their 50 overs, Sri Lanka got off to a poor start. They were soon 76 for 7 and looking down the barrel. Chaminda Vaas and Kumar Sangakkara did try to make a match of it but it was too much. Anyways, whatever tussle that remained was buried by the rains and Australia won by 48 runs through Duckworth-Lewis method.
In the second semis, India faced Kenya. Honestly, it was a cakewalk. India piled up 270 runs with century from Sourav Ganguly and 83 from Sachin Tendulkar. In reply, Kenya folded for just 179 runs. They were never in the match after being 62 for 5.
The final proved an anti-climax. Australia, particularly Ricky Ponting, hammered the Indian bowlers and posted 359 for 2 in 50 overs. Ponting made 140 not out, while Damien Martyn made 88 not out. India never looked in the hunt and for once even Sachin Tendulkar failed. The maestro fell for four and took his tournament tally to 673, enough to win him the player of the series award, but not enough to get his team on the track. India floundered and fell short by 125 runs even though Virender Sehwag fought a lone battle.
World Cup 2007
The lessons of 1999 and 2003 were learned and so the Super Eights qualified from four groups of four. However, unexpectedly India and Pakistan failed to go past the first round, with Bangladesh and Ireland taking their places. The only points carried forward were the ones against the other qualifiers from the same group, which at least should have given the second round some meaning. This was also the first World Cup to feature power-plays.
Pakistan was eliminated in their second game, after they lost to Ireland by three wickets. The result was entirely overshadowed by the death of Pakistan’s coach, Bob Woolmer, hours later. India, meanwhile, were beaten by Bangladesh and then sent packing by Sri Lanka. New Zealand and England went through from Group C — England courtesy of wins over Canada and Kenya — while Australia and South Africa barely broke sweat in a group containing Scotland and the Netherlands. Bangladesh’s and Ireland’s qualification meant that, in reality, the semi-finals were between four of six, and with England and the hosts looking all at sea, the excitement was minimal. Of 24 games only three were remotely tense; the best being the second and the last, South Africa v Sri Lanka and a meaningless clash between England and West Indies which was also special as it was Brian Lara’s last.
The tournament was also marred by poor turnouts as the organizers charged steep rates for entry and forbade spectators from bringing in musical instruments. Too many games, and the presence of too many weak teams in the Super Eights, contributed to dull cricket all the way. The final ended in darkness with the umpires and match referee showing a poor grasp of the rules. Thus, a farcical finish underlined how poorly the entire event was organized.
In the semifinals, Sri Lanka beat New Zealand by 81 runs and Australia thrashed South Africa, who once again choked, crashing to 27 for 5 before limping to 149.
The best two sides made the final. This was the first World Cup final to be a repeat — the sides previously met in the 1996 World Cup final, which Sri Lanka won. Australia has won every World Cup match against Sri Lanka apart from that loss. The match was Sri Lanka’s second World Cup final appearance and Australia’s sixth, their fourth in a row.
Rickey Ponting won the toss and elected to bat. However, the start of play was delayed due to rain, and the match was reduced to 38 overs per side. Adam Gilchrist played an incredible innings of 149 off 104 balls — the highest for any batsman in a World Cup final — to give Australia an imposing total of 281 for 4 in 38 overs going in to the break. Batting with a squash ball in your glove can be a painful experience, but not for Gilchrist. The result was perhaps the best performance in a World Cup final. This was his third scene-stealer in consecutive World Cup finals. Against Pakistan at Lord’s in 1999, he cracked 54 from 36 balls; four years later against India in Johannesburg, he made 57 from 48. But nothing quite compared to this.
Once the sun had come out and Gilchrist had gauged the pace and bounce of a rock-hard and true surface, there was no reining him — or Australia — in. He set the tone by clubbing Chaminda Vaas for four and six in the second over and never looked back. With flashing hands and fast feet, Tillakaratne Dilshan was deposited along the same straight line twice in one over, one longer than the next. Muttiah Muralitharan was slog-swept and Sanath Jayasuriya was pulled. Dilhara Fernando put down a return chance when Gilchrist was on 31, and the next three deliveries were clubbed for four, four and six. Gilchrist brought up his 15th ODI hundred from just 72 balls with a drilled four over long-off, and thereafter heaved through the line with impunity, trusting his eye, the surface and the fact that the fight had gone out of his opponents.
Eight sixes was achievement enough, but just as eye-catching were the number of fours he hit in the air, swiveling and sashaying with his familiar high-handle grip. There was a touch of the super-heroic about it. The ground is for normal men, he seemed to be saying. By the time Gilchrist was finished, there was little doubt about the place of his innings in the pantheon of innings played in World Cup finals, and that list included masterpieces by Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Aravinda de Silva, and Ricky Ponting.
Sri Lanka chased gamely, and while Kumar Sangakkara and Sanath Jayasuriya were in — they added 116 — they were in with a shout. But both fell in quick succession and then farce descended in the gloom. The umpires left the field for bad light as Australia celebrated, but then the officials, amid scenes which left cricket a laughing stock, brought the players back on. By the end nobody could see what was happening in the middle.
Australia won the tournament undefeated, concluding a streak of 29 World Cup games without a loss.Australian bowler Glenn McGrath was named ‘Player of the Series’.
