How Imran Khan lifted the World Cup
25th March 1992.The moon was up that night and far down below on the planet earth lakhs of moons were up and dancing; Caught in a flag or a T shirt, the crescent were being waved by thousands of Pakistani men, women and Children. Pakistan had just won the World Cup; a proud & happy Imran Khan was holding aloft the trophy and all heaven had broken loose. It was just early evening in Pakistan; Ramadan and iftari; yet thousands of moons were dancing everywhere; it was a culmination of one man's ambition and a dream of millions.
The ambition was that of Imran Khan, son of a strong and proud woman. Once when Imran at the age of 13 had bribed his way out of trouble with a police man, his mother confronted him as soon as she heard about it. She told him that bribing was a loss of his dignity and that he should have gone to goal instead. When Imran tried to defend
himself by stating the obvious - that the other boys do the same- his mo! ther had just this brief thing to say - 'You are a Pathan'. The lips had uttered those words and her eyes had sparkled with pride and honesty.
Then on the young boy has lived his life with pride, and that March night was one of the highest point in a proud man's life. So how did he lead the team to lift the world cup?
It all started in his mind. As he was groping around for funds for his cancer hospital he realized that a World Cup triumph will pave way for his real dream- the cancer hospital. As he put it in his autobiography - 'I realized that for my hospital project the most important factor would be winning the world cup'
It was as simple as that, he had to win the cup. So the mind, the heart was all keyed up for the event but his body nearly gave up on him. Just two days before the event during a practice session, he felt a pain in his left shoulder and soon he could not even move it. It was his most painful in! jury ever, physically and psychological as well. 'Without saying anything, I just left the nets, dropped the bat and walked back to the Melbourne Hilton. I locked myself in the room and told the operator to not to
put through any more calls and just sat there in complete agony for the next few hours. It was one of those times when everything seemed hopeless.'
So it was in this hopeless state of mind that Imran fell to sleep 2 nights before the world cup. Imagine the despair, the thought of the hospital dream shattered and the resulting agony; it would have been too much for lesser mortals. But Khan was no lesser mortal, he woke up next morning in even more pain but his dark moods had vanished, the despair had gone out of the window, the strong mind had taken over. He
went to a surgeon and the next day, the morning of the match against West Indies, took a cortisone injection. But he felt that he was not still fit to play and also reckoned that Pakistan needed to win only 5 of their 8 matches and they will be through to the semifinals.
But there were to be other hurdles thrown in front of him; it was just not his body. On the morning of the match, as soon as Imran announced that he won't be playing, Salim Malik opened the Pandora's Box and let out his ego flying at the others in the team. Reason?He wanted to be the Captain. He was the vice captain in the pre world cup tour but was replaced with Miandad by the selectors for the world cup. There wa s
anger, hurt, bruised ego, a fight with the manager and as a result lot of confusion in the dressing room. Just imagine, a World Ccup match is about to be played and so much chaos!
I can now easily make that last sentence and put an exclamation mark for dramatic effects but what was Imran thinking at that time?
'What puzzled me was Malik's attitude. He was not concerned about how important this match was to the whole nation, which was in the midst of the world cup fever; all he was worried about was being captain. I am afraid I have always had very little respect for such individualistic players'
Hmmm, You can't argue with that, can you? In fact the question is why then did Imran not drop Malik? He answers that himself -'I would most definitely have dropped him from the team had we had a strong batting line up'
Hence it was no surprise that Pakistan were crushed by the West Indies; they won by 10 wickets. Imran watched all this from beyond the boundary. Next stop was Hobart, 27th feb and the match was against Zimbabwe. Imran had counted this as one of the five wins that he needs and felt that he had to take control of the team and hence play. He didn't bowl nor bat and saw Pakistan winning it comfortably by 53 run
margin. But by playing, he aggravated his injury by bowling in the nets. That meant he was out of the next crucial match against England on March 1st 1992 at Adelaide oval.
More crisis on the match day as Miandad felt pain in his back and wanted to field in the outfield. Fielding closing in was causing him more pain and hence the desire to field in the outfield. He also felt that it would be better if Malik took over the captaincy. So Imran went and asked Salim but Malik declined it. He didn't want it now
after being turned down initially. More drama and chaos in the camp. Whatever confidence that Zimbabwe win gave them had disappeared into that thick fog of bruised egos and utter confusion.
Finally it was Miandad who led the team onto the field of disaster; Pakistan batted first and immediately crumbled to 42 for the loss of 5 wickets but the tail enders took the score to 74 runs; there were 10 extras in that. Then Pakistan went in for lunch and prayed (?); they must have as clouds opened out their blessings and rain poured. A revised target of 64 runs was set for England in 16 overs and they
were on 24 for 1 in 8! overs when rain gods had enough of this nonsense and intervened in to abandon the play. Points were shared and how crucial it was to prove later!
Next encounter was against India. There were no questions in Imran'mind, he had to play. Pain killers went in his body and he went out on to the field. Indian batsmen struggled; consider this, the swashbuckling batsman Srikkanth scored only 4 runs after being in there for 41 minutes for 40 balls. A Young Sachin (54 runs) played a
very matured innings in the company of Kapil (35 runs) and took the score to a respectable 216 runs. Pakistan through Aamir sohail (62) looked well set on the victory path, reaching 105 for the loss of just two wickets. Then Sachin struck as Sohail swung his bat at the ball trying to hit past midwicket, but hit straight but low to Srikkanth at short-midwicket. He stooped low and picked up the catch. Malik and Miandad took the score to 127 when Prabhakar lured Malik into a loose
drive outside off, the edge going to More. 'Careless shot' was how Imran describes that shot in his book. That Malik wicket was the beginning of the fall of Pakistan. 3 runs later Imran was run out and Pakistan soon collapsed to 173 all out.
South Africa was their next opponent (8th March at Brisbane) and more disaster as Miandad didn't feel fit enough to play in that match. South Africans batted first and looked cruising as they reached 98 for the loss of one wicket. Then Imran struck and took successive wickets reducing SA to 110 for 3. Then 2 more wickets fell and SA were at 127 for 5. But Cronje (47) and McMillan (33) helped along with some poor
fielding, took the score ahead and SA ended up with 211 runs.
The wicket was a batting friendly one and Pakistan went along steadily to 70 for 2 when rain intervened. The target was revised; they had to score 194 runs off 36 overs. Also the batting friendly had become a rain affected. But Inzamam showed glimpse of his talent and the storm that he was to unleash later as he batted really well for his 48 runs off 44 balls. Then Rhodes announced himself to the cricketing world and found an entry into million posters and conversations worldwide as
he flew in the air to run Inzamam out. The score was then 135 and Pakistan could only take it to 173.
Now it looked that the Pakistan' cup of dreams was broken. From 23rd Feb to 8th Mar the players had tasted a solitary victory against Zimbabwe and rain had brought them another point. (and they had lost their practice matches against South Africa, Srilanka and even to Tasmania) Also they had lost to India, their arch rivals, the public back home was screaming in anger, the players must have been screaming
in agony caused by disappointment. Of course when disappointment and
agony are around, bickering and blaming others also creep in quickly.
They did; Malik went round telling to anybody who cared to listen that he should be batting at No3. Imran wrote later that it was Malik who had earlier wanted to bat at no 5 in these bouncy Australian tracks. More trouble in the form of a disgruntled Rameez Raja lay ahead for the captain. Imran writes in his autobiography 'Rameez Raja who had not played against India due to a shoulder injury went round telling
people that he was really fit but I had not asked him. In fact in every team meeting all the players were asked to talk about their fitness and the last time I had spoken to him he had clearly stated that he had still little strength in his left shoulder. But this is typical of a team when it is doing badly.'
A losing team has always this unstable edge to it especially when there is so much pressure on these cricketers. They knew that the public back home would be getting very angry and that fear coupled with their own disappointment at failing would take them to the very edge. Men who are mentally strong can cope up with it, others will
flutter, some would start throwing the blame at others, and as a result tempers get frayed, nerves weaken and chaos results. That was the state of the Pakistani camp post that defeat against South Africa. It was in disarray, it needed a jolt from somewhere; something miraculous had to happen, a 'karishma'.
What was Imran Khan thinking? Read his thoughts, 'The pressure on me was multiplied because I realized that if we lost the next match and were out of the World Cup I would not be able to do any fundraising for another six months, maybe a year. I was also aware that our newspapers had begun to write that the reason for the team' failure was that I was not concentrating on cricket but on giving publicity to
my hospital. As a result our fund-raising campaign, which was in process in Pakistan, had completely collapsed'.
They were to face Australia in the next match and if they lost they would have to face a hostile public back home. Imr! an Khan knew he had to win; it was as simple as that. He had got into the world cup because he wanted to raise funds for his hospital, as he himself put it- 'to cash in on the euphoria of a possible world cup win'
The team had now huddled together for a meeting. Tensed and under severe pressure, they must have been a real disappointed lot. Not only their dream of a win looked gone but now they would have to confront the nightmares of public back home. That meeting room must not have been a place to be envied.
Enter Imran Khan.
He had decided to attack at their worst fears and nightmares and make them realize that they were not so bad at all. How? ' I tried to drive home to them that the worst that could happen was we could lose and they need not worry because the blame would come to me'. Also more pep talks on the lines of not being afraid to lose go out their fighting like tigers, there is no shame if we go down fighting etc followed.
Im! ran also told them that he had every faith that they would still win.
Imran had had this gut feel all along that he would be lifting the cup. He had never felt this in the previous world cups. So this faith that he would win helped him and that feeling filtered down to the other players. Imran even quotes from Koran in his book and may be he invoked the same in the dressing room, 'For a Moslem, hopelessness is a sin'.
So now egged on by this faith of their skipper, the team subconsciously now felt that miracle could occur. Didn't the rain come and earn them a point against England? Also they were encouraged by his body language. Imran had this to say on captaincy later'Often it is not the sort of things a captain says in his team meetings that
make a difference but what a captain believes and the way he carries himself. The players look more towards the body language rather than the rhetoric in speeches to the team'.
It of course ! depends on the culture of a society as well; the cues that a particular set of people look to for say deriving confidence can vary. Faith can move some as it did those Pakistani players.
So a under pressure Imran but urged on by his gut feel and powered by his ambition, he walked out to toss confidently. To his side was under pressure Border. Imran wrote 'His face bore the expression of a man who was worried about losing and did not necessarily believe that he could win. I felt that was a crucial difference between our two attitudes'.
Those attitudes were reflected in the results as well as Pakistan won by 48 runs. Sohail had top scored with 76 and Miandad (46) and Rameez(36) helped the team to post 220 runs. Aaqib Javed and Mushtaq Ahmad took three wickets each and Imran (dismissed Marsh & Steve Waugh) andAkram took two wickets each and shot out Australia for 172 runs. Salim Malik had gone in No 3 and was bowled for a duck. It paved way for
Imran to go at No 3 in the later matches.
'The win against Australia was the turning point. I was able to tell the players that it was my belief that we were destined to win the World Cup'.
The next game was against Sri Lanka, a team already out of the world cup, so that should mean Imran must have been more relaxed, right? Wrong. Imran was really tensed, the reason- '...the Sri Lankans were already out of the World Cup and hence they had nothing to lose. Moreover after their game against Australia, the team did not look
fired enough against Sri Lanka' In the end Pakistan won by 4 wickets and they moved to New Zealand for their final league match against the home team in Christchurch.
Even now it was not a straight equation; West Indies had to lose to Australia. So was Imran tense? - 'I was fairly relaxed. . West Indies would be under immense pressure as we were against Sri Lanka and the West Indies are known not to play well u! nder pressure.'
A over confident New Zealand team went down to the guile of the man of the match Mushtaq who suffocated them with figures of 18 runs in 10 overs, taking 2 wickets and Akram claimed 4 victims and the Kiwis were bundled out for 166 runs. Rameez hit a fine century and took Pakistan home. As Imran had expected the Windies crumbled under pressure and their crumbling were watched with delight not only by fans of the team
but by the team itself. They had post their match immediately headed for the hotel and watched the Aus-Win match in the television. And when Steve Waugh trapped Benjamin in front of the wicket, celebrations erupted inside the hotel. It was almost as if they had won the Cup!
Now to that semifinal against New Zealand. But before Imran could take the field there was to be more drama off field. On the morning of 21st March 1992, the morning of the match, Inzamam complained of food poisoning & giddiness and wanted to withdraw from the match Imran was adamant that he played and allowed Inzamam to bat lower down the order and finally persuaded him to play.
Meanwhile Imran was himself suffering from the severe shoulder pain, so much so that he could not pick up a glass to drink. More pain killers than the normal dose was taken and he walked in to the arena. Martin Crowe electing to bat led from the front with a brilliant innings of 91 off just 83 balls when he got run out. Rutherford had
also scored a valuable half century. Pakistan was set a target of 263 for a victory.
Now the onus was on the batsman to deliver. Imran and the team felt that since the New Zealand did not have a great bowling attack, if they could preserve wickets earlier on when the ball was moving around, they can go for the shots later. But who is to bell the cat? Who is to play the anchor?
Imran was not in great batting form and hence asked whether Inzamam would like to go in at no3.! Inzamam still had not recovered completely and felt more comfortable going down the order. So Imran walked in at the fall of Sohail and the score at 30. Imran was hopelessly out of any hitting form and was only able to stay out there
and occupy the crease. The wickets were not falling but neither was the asking rate. Miandad joined Imran and he was trying to get acclimatized to the pitch, meanwhile the asking rate and the heart beat of millions of Pakistanis were going up.
Imran tried to hit out but couldn't, and finally got out scoring 44 runs off 93 balls. Malik fell for just one run. The asking rate was over 8 runs an over and it looked now that the gut feel of Imran was all wrong. Surely an ailing and a weak Inzamam could not pull off any miracle and what can Miandad do alone out there?
Even Imran felt that for the first time during the tournament they were not going to make it. But miracles do happen and Inzamam under the guidance of that ! great Pakistani batsman Miandad enacted his own script out there in the middle. What a time to reveal one's genius, talent. A cricketer is not going to get a greater arena than the World Cup to declare himself and Inzamam went on to do exactly that as he
went on to score 60 thrilling runs of just 37 balls with the help of 7 fours and 1 six. His talent was on display for 48 minutes and every nano second of it was thrilling. The old pro, Miandad guiding, urging the young talent home, it was sensational stuff. Inzamam got run out but Miandad went on to score 57 not out. Pakistan had reached the final.
To add further fuel to the fire of faith engulfing Imran and his men,rain came down just half an hour after the completion of the game. 'I knew that God was on our side when it began to rain. Had the rain come an hour earlier it would have been goodbye to tour World Cup chances'.
Imran wanted one more favor from his god; he wanted the toss to come down in his favor. The rain and the history of world cup where chasers have found it difficult (Sri Lanka was to rewrite this history in the next edition) meant Imran was convinced that half the battle would be won if the toss is won. Of course toss was his and he
promptly decided to bat on the 25th march, 1992.
None of the Pakistani players could sleep on the night before the final, the excitement was too much for them, Sleeping pills were administered and only then did they sleep. So Imran did not have to create further excitement and tension in their mind trying to motivate them. He simply asked them to enjoy themselves as this could be their only final; it was Imran's solitary World Cup final in a career
spanning 21 years.
One thing remained to be decided. Who is going to bat at no3? Imran had a miserable time in the semifinal almost ruining Pakistan's chances but then nobody else had fared any better in that vital position. Imran took the extremely bold move of putting himself at no3. It was a brave move from a proud man. Imran wrote later 'How
could I ask anyone else to go in then if I was not prepared to do so myself?' The pressure must have been tremendous, he had just failed with the bat in the previous game and as he himself put it 'I knew that I would have been lynched had we lost the semi final because I would have been blamed for slow batting'.
And the captain courageous was required very quickly to go in on that evening. Sohail got out when the score was at 20 and Imran walked in. Four runs later, Rameez fell and Miandad walked in. The ball was moving around, pringle being the chief tormentor. Imran and Miandad knew that one more wicket and they could all be gone as the rest of
the batsmen did not have the necessary skill or experience to tackle the moving ball. So they decided to stay put out there. Miandad survived a close lbw call off Pringle and by the end of the 15th over they were at 32/2. Soon Imran got a reprieve; Gooch dropped him when he was at 20. Captain and his deputy now started to accelerate and
runs started to come by at faster rate. Both of them reached their half centuries and when the score was at 163, Miandad (58 off 98 balls) fell trying to reverse sweep. He had called a runner to run for him when he was 53 and 5 runs later he was out.
'Javed got out at the right time as I knew he was tired and had started to become a liability' - Imran. Imran soon departed for a valuable 72 off 110 balls. Then Inzamam(42 off 35 balls, 4 fours) and Akram (33 off 19 balls, 4 fours) took over and exploded into the English attack. 51 runs came in the last six overs, Pakistan finished with 249.
England was reduced to 69 for 4 as Mushtaq took two quick wickets. Akram had earlier removed the potentially dangerous Botham for just one run. A partnership between Lamb and Fairbrother took the score to 141 when Akram struck twice in an over. That over of course part of folk lore all around the cricketing world. Pace, Swing and guile had removed Lamb and a bewildered Lewis. They were balls of fire, balls out of a dream, two screaming swingers and they were gone. The rest was inevitable; however Imran was to have one final moment of glory on field.
He bowled that last wicket taking delivery in that World Cup, he ran in for the last time in his international career and jumped into that final wonderful leap of his, a leap to stardom, to fame, to his dreams and what can Richard Illingworth do in front of all that? He was mere pawn, a part of a great ambition, of a dream of millions and he played his part. He sent the ball into the sky and Rameez accepted with glee
as the ball and the Cup came down Pakistan' ways.
Pakistan had won the World Cup; Imran had achieved his ambition. He received with joy that crystal bowl, and lifted it to the skies. It was his cup of joy, Pakistan' cup ! of dreams and in that moment of ecstasy he made one slip. In his victory speech there were no words for his team, it was all about his dream, the hospital. Imran was to
write later 'I know in an emotional state at the end of the final, I didn't thank the team for their tremendous performances but it was not because I didn't appreciate them. For a start I felt that the team and me were one and the same thing and thanking the team would have meant thanking myself'
Just one final image from that day and this is the image of the day and in fact, for the tournament for me. As Imran was walking back off the field, somebody tapped him on his back. Imran turned back to find his old colleague Javed Miandad. Four retinas widened in joy, two hearts were on fire; In the euphoria of a triumph, all old ill
feelings (if any) had disappeared and they both hugged each other.Then Miandad draped a Pakistan flag around their shoulders and the two great cricketers walked off the ! field.
On that flag, the crescent moon was dancing.
The ambition was that of Imran Khan, son of a strong and proud woman. Once when Imran at the age of 13 had bribed his way out of trouble with a police man, his mother confronted him as soon as she heard about it. She told him that bribing was a loss of his dignity and that he should have gone to goal instead. When Imran tried to defend
himself by stating the obvious - that the other boys do the same- his mo! ther had just this brief thing to say - 'You are a Pathan'. The lips had uttered those words and her eyes had sparkled with pride and honesty.
Then on the young boy has lived his life with pride, and that March night was one of the highest point in a proud man's life. So how did he lead the team to lift the world cup?
It all started in his mind. As he was groping around for funds for his cancer hospital he realized that a World Cup triumph will pave way for his real dream- the cancer hospital. As he put it in his autobiography - 'I realized that for my hospital project the most important factor would be winning the world cup'
It was as simple as that, he had to win the cup. So the mind, the heart was all keyed up for the event but his body nearly gave up on him. Just two days before the event during a practice session, he felt a pain in his left shoulder and soon he could not even move it. It was his most painful in! jury ever, physically and psychological as well. 'Without saying anything, I just left the nets, dropped the bat and walked back to the Melbourne Hilton. I locked myself in the room and told the operator to not to
put through any more calls and just sat there in complete agony for the next few hours. It was one of those times when everything seemed hopeless.'
So it was in this hopeless state of mind that Imran fell to sleep 2 nights before the world cup. Imagine the despair, the thought of the hospital dream shattered and the resulting agony; it would have been too much for lesser mortals. But Khan was no lesser mortal, he woke up next morning in even more pain but his dark moods had vanished, the despair had gone out of the window, the strong mind had taken over. He
went to a surgeon and the next day, the morning of the match against West Indies, took a cortisone injection. But he felt that he was not still fit to play and also reckoned that Pakistan needed to win only 5 of their 8 matches and they will be through to the semifinals.
But there were to be other hurdles thrown in front of him; it was just not his body. On the morning of the match, as soon as Imran announced that he won't be playing, Salim Malik opened the Pandora's Box and let out his ego flying at the others in the team. Reason?He wanted to be the Captain. He was the vice captain in the pre world cup tour but was replaced with Miandad by the selectors for the world cup. There wa s
anger, hurt, bruised ego, a fight with the manager and as a result lot of confusion in the dressing room. Just imagine, a World Ccup match is about to be played and so much chaos!
I can now easily make that last sentence and put an exclamation mark for dramatic effects but what was Imran thinking at that time?
'What puzzled me was Malik's attitude. He was not concerned about how important this match was to the whole nation, which was in the midst of the world cup fever; all he was worried about was being captain. I am afraid I have always had very little respect for such individualistic players'
Hmmm, You can't argue with that, can you? In fact the question is why then did Imran not drop Malik? He answers that himself -'I would most definitely have dropped him from the team had we had a strong batting line up'
Hence it was no surprise that Pakistan were crushed by the West Indies; they won by 10 wickets. Imran watched all this from beyond the boundary. Next stop was Hobart, 27th feb and the match was against Zimbabwe. Imran had counted this as one of the five wins that he needs and felt that he had to take control of the team and hence play. He didn't bowl nor bat and saw Pakistan winning it comfortably by 53 run
margin. But by playing, he aggravated his injury by bowling in the nets. That meant he was out of the next crucial match against England on March 1st 1992 at Adelaide oval.
More crisis on the match day as Miandad felt pain in his back and wanted to field in the outfield. Fielding closing in was causing him more pain and hence the desire to field in the outfield. He also felt that it would be better if Malik took over the captaincy. So Imran went and asked Salim but Malik declined it. He didn't want it now
after being turned down initially. More drama and chaos in the camp. Whatever confidence that Zimbabwe win gave them had disappeared into that thick fog of bruised egos and utter confusion.
Finally it was Miandad who led the team onto the field of disaster; Pakistan batted first and immediately crumbled to 42 for the loss of 5 wickets but the tail enders took the score to 74 runs; there were 10 extras in that. Then Pakistan went in for lunch and prayed (?); they must have as clouds opened out their blessings and rain poured. A revised target of 64 runs was set for England in 16 overs and they
were on 24 for 1 in 8! overs when rain gods had enough of this nonsense and intervened in to abandon the play. Points were shared and how crucial it was to prove later!
Next encounter was against India. There were no questions in Imran'mind, he had to play. Pain killers went in his body and he went out on to the field. Indian batsmen struggled; consider this, the swashbuckling batsman Srikkanth scored only 4 runs after being in there for 41 minutes for 40 balls. A Young Sachin (54 runs) played a
very matured innings in the company of Kapil (35 runs) and took the score to a respectable 216 runs. Pakistan through Aamir sohail (62) looked well set on the victory path, reaching 105 for the loss of just two wickets. Then Sachin struck as Sohail swung his bat at the ball trying to hit past midwicket, but hit straight but low to Srikkanth at short-midwicket. He stooped low and picked up the catch. Malik and Miandad took the score to 127 when Prabhakar lured Malik into a loose
drive outside off, the edge going to More. 'Careless shot' was how Imran describes that shot in his book. That Malik wicket was the beginning of the fall of Pakistan. 3 runs later Imran was run out and Pakistan soon collapsed to 173 all out.
South Africa was their next opponent (8th March at Brisbane) and more disaster as Miandad didn't feel fit enough to play in that match. South Africans batted first and looked cruising as they reached 98 for the loss of one wicket. Then Imran struck and took successive wickets reducing SA to 110 for 3. Then 2 more wickets fell and SA were at 127 for 5. But Cronje (47) and McMillan (33) helped along with some poor
fielding, took the score ahead and SA ended up with 211 runs.
The wicket was a batting friendly one and Pakistan went along steadily to 70 for 2 when rain intervened. The target was revised; they had to score 194 runs off 36 overs. Also the batting friendly had become a rain affected. But Inzamam showed glimpse of his talent and the storm that he was to unleash later as he batted really well for his 48 runs off 44 balls. Then Rhodes announced himself to the cricketing world and found an entry into million posters and conversations worldwide as
he flew in the air to run Inzamam out. The score was then 135 and Pakistan could only take it to 173.
Now it looked that the Pakistan' cup of dreams was broken. From 23rd Feb to 8th Mar the players had tasted a solitary victory against Zimbabwe and rain had brought them another point. (and they had lost their practice matches against South Africa, Srilanka and even to Tasmania) Also they had lost to India, their arch rivals, the public back home was screaming in anger, the players must have been screaming
in agony caused by disappointment. Of course when disappointment and
agony are around, bickering and blaming others also creep in quickly.
They did; Malik went round telling to anybody who cared to listen that he should be batting at No3. Imran wrote later that it was Malik who had earlier wanted to bat at no 5 in these bouncy Australian tracks. More trouble in the form of a disgruntled Rameez Raja lay ahead for the captain. Imran writes in his autobiography 'Rameez Raja who had not played against India due to a shoulder injury went round telling
people that he was really fit but I had not asked him. In fact in every team meeting all the players were asked to talk about their fitness and the last time I had spoken to him he had clearly stated that he had still little strength in his left shoulder. But this is typical of a team when it is doing badly.'
A losing team has always this unstable edge to it especially when there is so much pressure on these cricketers. They knew that the public back home would be getting very angry and that fear coupled with their own disappointment at failing would take them to the very edge. Men who are mentally strong can cope up with it, others will
flutter, some would start throwing the blame at others, and as a result tempers get frayed, nerves weaken and chaos results. That was the state of the Pakistani camp post that defeat against South Africa. It was in disarray, it needed a jolt from somewhere; something miraculous had to happen, a 'karishma'.
What was Imran Khan thinking? Read his thoughts, 'The pressure on me was multiplied because I realized that if we lost the next match and were out of the World Cup I would not be able to do any fundraising for another six months, maybe a year. I was also aware that our newspapers had begun to write that the reason for the team' failure was that I was not concentrating on cricket but on giving publicity to
my hospital. As a result our fund-raising campaign, which was in process in Pakistan, had completely collapsed'.
They were to face Australia in the next match and if they lost they would have to face a hostile public back home. Imr! an Khan knew he had to win; it was as simple as that. He had got into the world cup because he wanted to raise funds for his hospital, as he himself put it- 'to cash in on the euphoria of a possible world cup win'
The team had now huddled together for a meeting. Tensed and under severe pressure, they must have been a real disappointed lot. Not only their dream of a win looked gone but now they would have to confront the nightmares of public back home. That meeting room must not have been a place to be envied.
Enter Imran Khan.
He had decided to attack at their worst fears and nightmares and make them realize that they were not so bad at all. How? ' I tried to drive home to them that the worst that could happen was we could lose and they need not worry because the blame would come to me'. Also more pep talks on the lines of not being afraid to lose go out their fighting like tigers, there is no shame if we go down fighting etc followed.
Im! ran also told them that he had every faith that they would still win.
Imran had had this gut feel all along that he would be lifting the cup. He had never felt this in the previous world cups. So this faith that he would win helped him and that feeling filtered down to the other players. Imran even quotes from Koran in his book and may be he invoked the same in the dressing room, 'For a Moslem, hopelessness is a sin'.
So now egged on by this faith of their skipper, the team subconsciously now felt that miracle could occur. Didn't the rain come and earn them a point against England? Also they were encouraged by his body language. Imran had this to say on captaincy later'Often it is not the sort of things a captain says in his team meetings that
make a difference but what a captain believes and the way he carries himself. The players look more towards the body language rather than the rhetoric in speeches to the team'.
It of course ! depends on the culture of a society as well; the cues that a particular set of people look to for say deriving confidence can vary. Faith can move some as it did those Pakistani players.
So a under pressure Imran but urged on by his gut feel and powered by his ambition, he walked out to toss confidently. To his side was under pressure Border. Imran wrote 'His face bore the expression of a man who was worried about losing and did not necessarily believe that he could win. I felt that was a crucial difference between our two attitudes'.
Those attitudes were reflected in the results as well as Pakistan won by 48 runs. Sohail had top scored with 76 and Miandad (46) and Rameez(36) helped the team to post 220 runs. Aaqib Javed and Mushtaq Ahmad took three wickets each and Imran (dismissed Marsh & Steve Waugh) andAkram took two wickets each and shot out Australia for 172 runs. Salim Malik had gone in No 3 and was bowled for a duck. It paved way for
Imran to go at No 3 in the later matches.
'The win against Australia was the turning point. I was able to tell the players that it was my belief that we were destined to win the World Cup'.
The next game was against Sri Lanka, a team already out of the world cup, so that should mean Imran must have been more relaxed, right? Wrong. Imran was really tensed, the reason- '...the Sri Lankans were already out of the World Cup and hence they had nothing to lose. Moreover after their game against Australia, the team did not look
fired enough against Sri Lanka' In the end Pakistan won by 4 wickets and they moved to New Zealand for their final league match against the home team in Christchurch.
Even now it was not a straight equation; West Indies had to lose to Australia. So was Imran tense? - 'I was fairly relaxed. . West Indies would be under immense pressure as we were against Sri Lanka and the West Indies are known not to play well u! nder pressure.'
A over confident New Zealand team went down to the guile of the man of the match Mushtaq who suffocated them with figures of 18 runs in 10 overs, taking 2 wickets and Akram claimed 4 victims and the Kiwis were bundled out for 166 runs. Rameez hit a fine century and took Pakistan home. As Imran had expected the Windies crumbled under pressure and their crumbling were watched with delight not only by fans of the team
but by the team itself. They had post their match immediately headed for the hotel and watched the Aus-Win match in the television. And when Steve Waugh trapped Benjamin in front of the wicket, celebrations erupted inside the hotel. It was almost as if they had won the Cup!
Now to that semifinal against New Zealand. But before Imran could take the field there was to be more drama off field. On the morning of 21st March 1992, the morning of the match, Inzamam complained of food poisoning & giddiness and wanted to withdraw from the match Imran was adamant that he played and allowed Inzamam to bat lower down the order and finally persuaded him to play.
Meanwhile Imran was himself suffering from the severe shoulder pain, so much so that he could not pick up a glass to drink. More pain killers than the normal dose was taken and he walked in to the arena. Martin Crowe electing to bat led from the front with a brilliant innings of 91 off just 83 balls when he got run out. Rutherford had
also scored a valuable half century. Pakistan was set a target of 263 for a victory.
Now the onus was on the batsman to deliver. Imran and the team felt that since the New Zealand did not have a great bowling attack, if they could preserve wickets earlier on when the ball was moving around, they can go for the shots later. But who is to bell the cat? Who is to play the anchor?
Imran was not in great batting form and hence asked whether Inzamam would like to go in at no3.! Inzamam still had not recovered completely and felt more comfortable going down the order. So Imran walked in at the fall of Sohail and the score at 30. Imran was hopelessly out of any hitting form and was only able to stay out there
and occupy the crease. The wickets were not falling but neither was the asking rate. Miandad joined Imran and he was trying to get acclimatized to the pitch, meanwhile the asking rate and the heart beat of millions of Pakistanis were going up.
Imran tried to hit out but couldn't, and finally got out scoring 44 runs off 93 balls. Malik fell for just one run. The asking rate was over 8 runs an over and it looked now that the gut feel of Imran was all wrong. Surely an ailing and a weak Inzamam could not pull off any miracle and what can Miandad do alone out there?
Even Imran felt that for the first time during the tournament they were not going to make it. But miracles do happen and Inzamam under the guidance of that ! great Pakistani batsman Miandad enacted his own script out there in the middle. What a time to reveal one's genius, talent. A cricketer is not going to get a greater arena than the World Cup to declare himself and Inzamam went on to do exactly that as he
went on to score 60 thrilling runs of just 37 balls with the help of 7 fours and 1 six. His talent was on display for 48 minutes and every nano second of it was thrilling. The old pro, Miandad guiding, urging the young talent home, it was sensational stuff. Inzamam got run out but Miandad went on to score 57 not out. Pakistan had reached the final.
To add further fuel to the fire of faith engulfing Imran and his men,rain came down just half an hour after the completion of the game. 'I knew that God was on our side when it began to rain. Had the rain come an hour earlier it would have been goodbye to tour World Cup chances'.
Imran wanted one more favor from his god; he wanted the toss to come down in his favor. The rain and the history of world cup where chasers have found it difficult (Sri Lanka was to rewrite this history in the next edition) meant Imran was convinced that half the battle would be won if the toss is won. Of course toss was his and he
promptly decided to bat on the 25th march, 1992.
None of the Pakistani players could sleep on the night before the final, the excitement was too much for them, Sleeping pills were administered and only then did they sleep. So Imran did not have to create further excitement and tension in their mind trying to motivate them. He simply asked them to enjoy themselves as this could be their only final; it was Imran's solitary World Cup final in a career
spanning 21 years.
One thing remained to be decided. Who is going to bat at no3? Imran had a miserable time in the semifinal almost ruining Pakistan's chances but then nobody else had fared any better in that vital position. Imran took the extremely bold move of putting himself at no3. It was a brave move from a proud man. Imran wrote later 'How
could I ask anyone else to go in then if I was not prepared to do so myself?' The pressure must have been tremendous, he had just failed with the bat in the previous game and as he himself put it 'I knew that I would have been lynched had we lost the semi final because I would have been blamed for slow batting'.
And the captain courageous was required very quickly to go in on that evening. Sohail got out when the score was at 20 and Imran walked in. Four runs later, Rameez fell and Miandad walked in. The ball was moving around, pringle being the chief tormentor. Imran and Miandad knew that one more wicket and they could all be gone as the rest of
the batsmen did not have the necessary skill or experience to tackle the moving ball. So they decided to stay put out there. Miandad survived a close lbw call off Pringle and by the end of the 15th over they were at 32/2. Soon Imran got a reprieve; Gooch dropped him when he was at 20. Captain and his deputy now started to accelerate and
runs started to come by at faster rate. Both of them reached their half centuries and when the score was at 163, Miandad (58 off 98 balls) fell trying to reverse sweep. He had called a runner to run for him when he was 53 and 5 runs later he was out.
'Javed got out at the right time as I knew he was tired and had started to become a liability' - Imran. Imran soon departed for a valuable 72 off 110 balls. Then Inzamam(42 off 35 balls, 4 fours) and Akram (33 off 19 balls, 4 fours) took over and exploded into the English attack. 51 runs came in the last six overs, Pakistan finished with 249.
England was reduced to 69 for 4 as Mushtaq took two quick wickets. Akram had earlier removed the potentially dangerous Botham for just one run. A partnership between Lamb and Fairbrother took the score to 141 when Akram struck twice in an over. That over of course part of folk lore all around the cricketing world. Pace, Swing and guile had removed Lamb and a bewildered Lewis. They were balls of fire, balls out of a dream, two screaming swingers and they were gone. The rest was inevitable; however Imran was to have one final moment of glory on field.
He bowled that last wicket taking delivery in that World Cup, he ran in for the last time in his international career and jumped into that final wonderful leap of his, a leap to stardom, to fame, to his dreams and what can Richard Illingworth do in front of all that? He was mere pawn, a part of a great ambition, of a dream of millions and he played his part. He sent the ball into the sky and Rameez accepted with glee
as the ball and the Cup came down Pakistan' ways.
Pakistan had won the World Cup; Imran had achieved his ambition. He received with joy that crystal bowl, and lifted it to the skies. It was his cup of joy, Pakistan' cup ! of dreams and in that moment of ecstasy he made one slip. In his victory speech there were no words for his team, it was all about his dream, the hospital. Imran was to
write later 'I know in an emotional state at the end of the final, I didn't thank the team for their tremendous performances but it was not because I didn't appreciate them. For a start I felt that the team and me were one and the same thing and thanking the team would have meant thanking myself'
Just one final image from that day and this is the image of the day and in fact, for the tournament for me. As Imran was walking back off the field, somebody tapped him on his back. Imran turned back to find his old colleague Javed Miandad. Four retinas widened in joy, two hearts were on fire; In the euphoria of a triumph, all old ill
feelings (if any) had disappeared and they both hugged each other.Then Miandad draped a Pakistan flag around their shoulders and the two great cricketers walked off the ! field.
On that flag, the crescent moon was dancing.
posted by Sriram Veera at 9:32 PM
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