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Changing track: The 1992 World Cup match was most crucial for India
The burden of Miandad’s last ball 6 which had haunted Indian cricket for more than 5 years was finally cast aside.
India versus Pakistan is the blockbuster contest on which ICC tournaments pivot. Nothing else in cricket compares with this rivalry in terms of passion, which in turn leads to supernormal profits that all cricket boards feed on.
It seems ironical now that India and Pakistan did not play each other in the first four ODI World Cups. In 1975, 79, 83, and 87, the two teams were slotted in different groups, making a match between them possible only in the semis or final.
In 1975 and 79, Pakistan reached that far but India flopped both times. In 1983, India pulled off an incredible triumph beating West Indies in the final, but Pakistan had fizzled out earlier.
In 1987, the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) and BCCP (Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan) connived and collaborated to take the World Cup away from England and hosted the tournament jointly in the sub-continent. However, the two teams were again put in different groups, in the fervent hope they’d meet in the final. As it happened, both lost in the semis, leaving England and Australia to fight for the Cup at Eden Gardens.
By this time, a cricket-loving Shakih from UAE, Abdul Rahman Bukhatir, had started to unlock the enormous box-office value of Indo-Pak cricket through his Cricketers Benefit Fund Scheme (CBFS) tournaments in Sharjah, catering largely to expats from the two countries.
CBFS started with unofficial matches in which players from India and Pakistan participated in for personal fiscal benefit. As its popularity soared, the cricket Boards of the two countries gave legitimacy – (after being guaranteed royalty, of course), and not much later, even the ICC recognized CBFS.
The next big fillip for came when cable television stepped into cricket broadcast in India, taking the game global, feeding the craving of the sub-continent diaspora and stoking even greater passion in Indo-Pak contests
In the last three decades value of TV rights for Indian cricket -- as well as ICC tournaments has grown exponentially into billion-dollar-plus deals. In this, the Indo-Pak contests is at the crux.
Lessons from the past, particularly the 2007 ODI World Cup in which teams the tournament was divided into two stages and both India and Pakistan were eliminated early, chastened the ICC. An Indo-Pak match is now staged early in the tournament to offset slump in form, and public disinterest later.This also the possibility of a repeat clash in the knock-out stage. Though this contingency hasn’t borne dividends in ODI World Cups, it worked splendidly in the inaugural T20 World Cup which was won by India, making new format a global phenomenon at first go.
Starved of regular bilateral cricket between the two countries because of fraught geo-political tensions (that generally wax, only occasionally wane), an Indo-Pak match in the ICC tournaments attracts global attention, drives cricket tourism and sponsorship, and obviously evokes monumental passion in fans in both countries. For all that, the cricket played has been like the curate’s egg, riveting in parts, sometime mediocre ,perhaps the pressure affecting players of both teams.
There have been outstanding performances no doubt. Who can forget Sachin Tendulkar’s smouldering 93 in the league match at Centurion, when he mowed down Pakistan’s dreaded pace attack of Wasim, Waqar and Shoaib with sabre thrust upper cuts and drives? Or the high-octane, sizzling tit-for-tat between aamer Sohail and Venkatesh Prasad in the quarter final of the 1996 World Cup at Bangalore? But in 1999, 2015 and 2019, the matches were one-sided damp squibs, though Indian fans obviously had no complaints since all three were won.
The most crucial match Indo-Pak World Cup match, in my reckoning, was in the 1992 tournament at Sydney.
After clinching the 1983 World Cup, India hit a purple patch -- winning the trophy in Asia Cup (1984), World Championship of Cricket (beating Pakistan twice, including in the final, 1985) and Rothmans Cup in Sharjah (1985).
However, in the 1986 Australasia Cup final in Sharjah, Javed Miandad’s last ball 6 off Chetan Sharma not only stymied India’s bid for a fourth successive title, but left such a deep dent on the psyche of India’s players that beating Pakistan in ODIs seemed virtually impossible thereafter. By the time of the 1992 World Cup match, the litany of defeats had become traumatic.
This match was played in front of a smallish crowd. It was a low scoring affair, India managing a modest 216 with Sachin Tendulkar, not yet 20, showing glimpses of greatness in scoring a half century. Pakistan, led by redoubtable Imran Khan looked likely winners at the innings changeover. But India fought back splendidly, chipping away at the batting, choking old nemesis Miandad for runs, finally bundling out the opposition for 173 to win by 43 runs.
The burden of Miandad’s last ball 6 which had haunted Indian cricket for more than 5 years had finally been cast aside.
India have never lost to Pakistan in ODI World Cups since.
