Monday Milestone: Ruling the World
“Who will it be?
Who'll be king?
It's once in a lifetime chance
Who'll rule the world?
Gotta see who’ll rule the world”
– Kasey Carlone ‘Who’ll rule the world’ – theme for the 1992 Benson and Hedges World Cup
This Week in History:
1992, March 25
Pakistan defeat England in the final of the 1992 Benson and Hedges World Cup at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The lights had been turned on. The colours were brighter than ever. The action promised to be fierce. The Southern Hemisphere had never seen anything like it. It’s difficult to believe the 1992 Benson and Hedges Cricket World Cup was more than two decades ago.
It was a showpiece. Australia had been set to defend their title until three losses from their first four matches left them reeling, and ultimately unable to even qualify for the semi-finals.
Co-hosts New Zealand instead took up the mantle, winning seven from eight on the back of some big Mark Greatbatch hitting and entered the semi-finals, with England, newcomers South Africa, and Pakistan.
It was a tournament, remembered for many things. There were surprises: Martin Crowe finished as the leading run scorer. There was controversy: South Africa, after re-entering the cricketing arena for the first time in a generation, was cruelly eliminated with a revised semi-final target after a rain delay from 22 from 13 balls, which is possible (even for the low run rates of the time), to 21 from 1 ball which is considerably less possible.
And there was Pakistan who’d only qualified for the semi-finals thanks to a convenient wash-out during the round-robin phase when they were otherwise headed for heavy defeat yet went on to become champions, defeating England after 72 from Imran Khan in his swansong and a half century from Javed Miandad then Wasim Akram removed Allan Lamb, and then the dangerous Chris Lewis in consecutive balls during the English innings to swing the vital momentum and take home the silverware.
It is all so vivid, that it’s seems incredible that it’s been twenty-one years since Pakistan ruled the world…
And since then, the West Indies have slid from the pinnacle of world cricket back into a disaggregated group of Caribbean nations constantly fighting off the lucrative lures of American basketball. South Africa have rebounded from Apartheid to become one of the great cricketing nations today, despite racial tensions still at the forefront of selection. Runners-up England have kept on, much like the past generation and now hold the Ashes, and are also ironically the country that introduced the greatest threat to the fifty-over game that cricket has known: Twenty20. Muttiah Muralithan has taken 800 wickets in Sri Lanka’s rise to prominence over the past twenty one years, whilst the Indian culture has witnessed a swelling in the country’s population, and are now home to over a billion cricket-mad fans. The Kiwis have struggled to return to such lofty heights of this World Cup, whilst 1992 champions Pakistan have also failed to reach such emphatic peaks, the country these days more associated with match-fixing and the last hiding place of Osama bin Laden. And the less said about Zimbabwe, the Robert Mugabe dictatorship, wracked with hyperinflation and chronic political instability, the better.
And as for Australia?
Well, in two years there will be another chance to host the World Cup.
The lights will be back on, the colours will be even brighter, and everything and nothing will be just like twenty-one years ago.
Milestone Five: Highlights (and lowlights) of the 1992 World Cup
5. Rain costs England victory in their round-robin match against eventual fellow-finalists Pakistan. With Pakistan bowled out for 74 and England comfortably chasing at 24/1 the heavens opened and no result was available
4. Martin Crowe shows New Zealand mean business smashing an unbeaten century in the opening match against fellow hosts Australia.
3. Spinner Dipak Patel opens the bowling for New Zealand in a remarkably unorthodox move that proved successful. It was then used a number of times throughout the tournament.
2. The South African run chase would have been almost comical if so much wasn’t at stake. The rules of the day reduced the South African target from 22 from 13 balls, to 22 from 7 balls (still technically possible) to 21 from 1 ball. Under modern day Duckworth-Lewis rules, South Africa still would have lost.
1. Wasim Akram removes Englishman Allan Lamb and the dangerous Chris Lewis in consecutive balls to ultimately swing the 1992 World Cup Final in Pakistan’s favour.
With thanks to Getty Images/Adrian Murrell/Getty Images Europe for the picture
