Why call a fielder a cheat?

It is accepted that not walking is not cheating. Fair enough, but why call a fielder a cheat when he takes a bumped catch? The premise is two-fold: the umpires have done in the batsman on occasions when they had not edged and so he is entitled to wait for the umpire’s call. Secondly, the batsman thinks the umpire is in best position to judge when he has edged or not but is often obscured in the fielding exchange and the moral onus lies on the fielder to own up whether it bumped or not.



Right, but what is going in the batsman’s mind when he actually waits: Oops I hope he has not seen or heard the edge; let me not try to look sheepish; is my face passive enough or, am I fidgeting or acting nervous; ooh these bloody fielders are going on with the appeal; hope he doesn’t relent. Phew. That was close. Lucky escape.



Now cut to the situation where the fielder has taken a ‘catch’. In most situations, he is not sure whether it had bumped. Let’s take the Dhoni catch off Pietersen at The Oval in the recent India-England series. Apparently, he thought that the ball dropped on his fingers and rolled up. Michael Clarke, here, must have felt the same.



Now take this catch by Steve Waugh. Did Waugh believe the ball bounded off to his elbow and he picked it up from there?



And lets assume, for argument sake, those situations where the fielder has appealed knowing fully well it had bumped. Now what’s the thought process: Hope he didn’t see the ball had hit the turf; hope my appeal is convincing enough; great these boys are also appealing; yippee… he has given it. Lucky day.



Now is there any difference between this and that of the batsman? The premise of umpiring giving batsmen wrongly holds here also. Many a time, the umpire has not given the batsman out, even after he had edged it. Secondly, as we have seen through the history of cricket, the umpire, even in the so-believed correct position, does make quite a few mistakes that allow the batsmen to get away. In fact the number of times when the batsmen has denied a wicket by ‘cheating’ is easily more than a fielder claiming a false catch. But the batsman is not expected to clear that mistake but the fielder is put on a moral dock. Is it fair?



As Ravi Shastri, the former India batsman, put it bluntly, “The option of players using their conscience to help the umpires is unrealistic. It’s not a case of somebody sitting in the air conditioner summoning his conscience to come out clean. When you are in the heat of battle, with the sun blazing down and five days of your labour coming to nothing, it’s the win you want at all cost.”



The cheating accusation has percolated to gully and backyard cricket too where in many cases there would be no umpires. The batsmen get away but the fielders’ reputation is tarred.



As Martin Williamson wrote, what is it about cricket that it is the only major sport in the world where some people demand that players do the umpires' jobs for them? And more unfairly, why paint only the fielders in the wrong light when they try to capitalise on a human error?



The fielders will appeal and the batsmen will stand his ground. It is human nature at work. The man in white coat will also err with his judgement. So be it. If you want to cut down the errors, try to incorporate a referral system.



The only thing this proves is there is no point in signing up deals to take a fielder’s words as Ponting and Kumble did before the series. It’s a great sentiment but it will be failed by human nature, time and again.



The only jarring point is if and when, post that deal, Ponting appeals knowing well that it had bumped, then and, only then, it smacks off bad taste. And only because they signed a deal saying catches would be decided on fielder’s words. Then you have taken the umpire out of the equation and want to play judge and open yourself for moral persecution. It is not suggested that Ponting did that in Sydney but just assuming a hypothetical situation. But in all fairness, many a time, the fielder is not sure whether it has bumped. Ponting must have felt the he was in control and the catch was deemed completed, and hence legal, before he hit the ground. The deal is error-ridden and cannot stand the pressures of real life.



But the point remains, even if a fielder knows that it had bumped, there is no way you can call him a cheat. Unless you call the batsman, who doesn’t walk, a cheat too. The mirror has to be the same. It’s not quite cricket is a great philosophy but it asks too much of a person. Cricket is just another game. Let’s not demand that players do the umpires' jobs for them. Yes it would be very nice, if they do help out but when they don’t, let’s not malign them. Just take a deep breath, hit a pub and get on with life. It’s just cricket.

One ball. Three runs to get. What do you do?

Dilhara Fernando with the ball and an inexperienced Ravi Bopara, who had till then carved out a gem of a cameo, with the bat. Nails were spit out, heart beat faster, and some eye-lids shut.

Mahela Jayawardene had a few decisions to make. Should I bring in the fine-leg? Should I have a mid-off or a long-off? Ravi had pedaled one past short-fine-leg fielder earlier and so it was not an easy choice. He opted for mid-off. Over to you Bopara. Now, he must be thinking should I go for an inside-out drive past mid-off. Four runs and a win will await me there. Or should I go straight down the ground or opt for the cow corner?

Meanwhile, Fernando set out his trap. Classic school-boy tactic. He ran in, approached the stumps, the right-arm went up, came down but with the ball, still, in hand. He wanted to see whether the batsman was going to move around. Gamesmanship. Bopara was standing still that time; he had not backed away or charged. Now, surely, the batsman had to do something else. Well, not definitely, but he was made to think.

Bopara fell for it and when Fernando came around for the legal delivery, he backed away to the leg side. Aiming to hit inside-out past that man at mid-off. And it back-fired. It was not a yorker, nor a slower one - Mahela had told Fernando, 'No slower ones, no bouncer, just go for full and fast one- or a bouncer but a length-delivery. But, in doing the shuffle, with the nerves jangling for the last delivery, after all he is a newbie, and in the effort to go inside-out, he missed the ball. Simple as that. Cruel as that. The bat came down in an angle, the ball evaded the waft, the bat met air and the ball met the sticks. It was all over.

That talk of Mahela reminds me of one that the great Frank Worrell gave Wes Hall in the famous Tied Test against Australia in 1960-61. Worrell also gave some advice to Hall. Did Hall follow it? Rather than reading me, hear the legend Hall.

Listen to the audio commentary of the final 13 tense minutes from it. Included a fab speech from Wes Hall. Worth it.

Also, catch some video action from the game here.

Learie Constantine

Wrote on the West Indian great. Here.

Tendulkar's dismissal

It's ironic, or is it poignant, that two great Indian batsmen were dismissed in a similar fashion in their last World Cup game?
SMG and SRT. Gavaskar fell inside-edging Phil Defrietas while Tendulkar chopped on Dilhara Fernando.


Watch that left foot. He has landed on the heel and not on the toe. And whenever Tendulkar has done it, he has been in trouble. The balance goes awry, he is just short of the ideal position, the head is not over the ball, and he is searching for the cherry.

Everything else looks so perfect in the picture. The left-elbow is high, eyes on the ball, the bat-face pretty straight but alas... that heel landing has meant he was a trifle late on the defensive stroke. When that happens, the bat gets pushed out a little bit too much in front, a slightl angle is created for the ball to disatrously collide with the edge. Previously he has nicked them to slips and in this, in what could be his last WC
game, he has dragged it on. Pity.

Sehwag's technique

I have already written two pieces in Cricinfo on his technique before. One 0n his ODI blues and the other on his short-ball woes. He has again changed his technique recently, takes a middle-stump guard now. As usual it is a fascinating topic.

Demons are gunning for Virender Sehwag. In South Africa, they fatally flirted with him outside the off stump and now, on his return, they are jumping at his throat. There are two questions around him; on technique and his position in the batting order. Here I will stick to the technique. Experts tried to lure him out of the fatal attraction by asking him to take a middle-stump guard. The logic was simple. Now he would be close to the line and hence doesn’t have to reach out for deliveries in the corridor of temptation. Simple and effective, you would think. However, one solution has reopened an old wound. The short-ball woes.

In the last ODI, Dilhara Fernando got the ball to burst off the pitch and made it rear at the throat and all Sehwag could offer was an ugly fend as a face-shield and was swallowed. Previously, he still used to have this problem but the bowlers had to take extra effort and aim to ping his body. Bouncers on middle stump or off would be slashed over slips as Sehwag would arch back and help it up and over. Now this middle stump guard has eased the bowler’s burden. The target has come closer and straighter, just bang it in short, on the stumps and pin him on the back foot. Demons move closer.

Also, since he doesn’t move his left foot across, in the line, he used to drill the fullish or inswinging deliveries honing in on the middle or off stump line. He used to stay beside the line of the ball rather than behind it. With this new guard, he will be cramped up when he goes for those smooth swings of the bat through the line of the ball as he might be mostly behind the line. So we might see him playing to the on side more than before. But with the old guard, and it has to be stressed in the recent period only, the problem outside off stump was causing a huge headache, especially when the new ball moved around a touch. So this move will help him on that front. It is going to be mighty interesting to watch how he goes about the task. Will he keep shifting his guard according to the bowlers he faces? Will he simply stick to one thing? It makes for compulsive TV.

The day the music died

Click here to watch 8 top dismissals from Warne, interspersed with commentary from the magician himself. Orgasmic!


The beauty doesn't just lie in the end result, the ball spinning prodigiously, but it starts right from the start. Shane Warne walking in to bowl is a sight in itself. The wait at the top of the walk, the theatrical look at the batsman, and the transfer of the cherry to the left hand with that beautiful flick of the right hand that only a leg break bowler can produce, all make you shift to the edge of the couch. Initially, the arms are at his side, and then the left hand discreetly transfers the ball to the right, that slow beautiful walk, the eyes gleaming in anticipation of a fooling a batsman, the two hands join again, the left over the right, underneath which, the grip on the ball is finalised and held firmly.

The left hand now withdraws away and the walk turns into a slow jog.And then that small hop, the right hand goes into a circular arc, and ends up with elbow locked in a V shape, the left hand also by this time makes a V, the right feet almost parallel to the crease; then the left hand comes out, forward and down like drawing down a curtain, while the right goes down and then comes up in a circular motion, and
the whole weight is now shifted to the left foot, and the ball is released with a rip, a final flick of the right wrist, launching the ball in its orbit.

The ball whirs in the air, swirls, swerves, dips and if it is Warne's day; it would pitch on the leg stump, the batsman unsure would turn towards it, the ball would then spin sharply, squaring him up , beating the frantic wave of the bat, and triumphantly kissing the off stump, which seems only happy to receive the kiss and would peg
back a little and give a hats off gesture – the bails come off.

What a beauty! If Abdul Qadir's run in was magical, with his hands doing through a myriad but beautiful motions, Warne's walk in is equally beautiful. Roberto Baggio's walk after scoring ‘The goal' is being constantly shown in a commercial but that was the end result of an achievement, a guilt washed away, a sad memory burnt, a
redemption song, but Shane Warne's walk is in anticipation of a triumph, of a dream looked forward to, a painting about to be sketched, a work of a true artist. Unlike Baggio's (no doubt, a wonderful moment) walk, which is a solitary walk in a lifetime, the beauty occurs each and every time, Warne goes in to bowl. Now he has chosen to walk off a cricket ground. Forever. With Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar set to ride off towards the horizon in the near future, the game will miss the magician, the wizard and technical virtuoso. Adios Amigos. I only wonder how tomorrow’s young boys and girls will fall in love with this great game.

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.

Turning to the talisman

Yesterday it was a personal milestone; today it was all about the team. Anil Kumble charged India to a position of great strength, with an allround effort, snatching a valuable lead and then spinning a web around the bewildered English batsmen to leave India with a great chance of taking a 1-0 lead in the series.

As Mike Atherton wrote, England had entered this series with a plan to tackle Kumble. Push forward, make contact in front of the pad and look to score through the on side. It worked in the spinless Nagpur but this Mohali track offered Kumble his twin friends: turn and bounce and he exploited it and how.


A freakish dismissal opened the gates for him. Andrew Strauss, increasingly edgy as the minutes trickled by, swept hard at Kumble. The edge rebounded off the boot and popped up to Dhoni. Almost immediately, Harbhajan Singh, with a little bit of help from Darrel Hair, removed Kevin Pietersen to leave England wounded and Kumble smelt blood. Switching to a higher gear, he probed, hustled, teased and tormented Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood. He bowled round arm to get conventional legbreak, spun out a few googlies with his two-fingered grip, and of course, slipped in quite a few topspinners and sliders. The bounce disconcerted the batsmen, the spin confounded them, the pace hurried them and slowly they were transformed into puppets in the master’s hands. Having bowled at Ian Bell a few deliveries at a slower pace, he slipped in a quicker one: it fizzed off the track and trapped Ian Bell at front. But Simon Taufel gave Bell a second lease of life. Kumble didn’t droop nor sulk; he kept coming hard at the batters. Paul Collingwood pushed at a leg break, but the chance was grassed in the slips, a hard chance, but it exposed his weakness and Kumble swooped in for the kill. He slided a few in, and then suddenly, threw one on the offstump, turning away. An unsure Collingwood poked at it and was swallowed in the slips.

Then came a magical passage of play that reduced the Ashes hero Andrew Flintoff, who had tackled Shane Warne with aplomb, to a mere mortal. He kept pushing forward, bat in front of the pad as he played for the one sliding in, but Kumble kept taking it away, beating him three times in an over. The sight unnerved the man standing on the other end. Ian Bell, who had nudged and dabbed his way around,then pushed at what appeared a harmless ball, short of length and turning away ever so slightly, and the nervous poke resulted in a fatal edge. Kumble had broken Bell’s resistance and probably that of England.