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Gus Logie wins Man of the Match for fielding

Children seldom wanted to field, and usually the youngest were sent to hunt leather at grass-root level. But then, Gus Logie was different.

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They said little Gus Logie could catch a flying bird; it was probably not an exaggeration © Getty Images
They said little Gus Logie could catch a flying bird; it was probably not an exaggeration © Getty Images

November 28, 1986. West Indies, firmly established as the champions of cricket, were clearly the ruling force in batting, bowling, and fielding. However, on that day at Sharjah, Gus Logie pulled off something that nobody has ever done before. Abhishek Mukherjee looks back at the first instance of a player winning a Man of the Match award for fielding.

Man of the Match awards are supposed to be won by a batsman, or, more specifically, since the Sachin TendulkarSanath Jayasuriya era, by opening batsmen. Bowlers have chipped in, but seldom have they been the glamour boys of sport.

As for fielders, they were the undisputed ‘third-class citizens’. Children seldom wanted to field, and usually the youngest were sent to hunt leather at grass-root level. Jonty Rhodes changed all that in World Cup 1992, but that is another story.

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Way before Rhodes there were spectacular fielders. There were the outstanding slip fielders, who seemed to pluck the ball out of thin air with outrageous ease. There were Jack Hobbs and Neil Harvey, Colin Bland and Tony Lock, Ashley Mallett and Derek Randall. In Lall Singh there was even a concept called a specialist fielder.

And then, there were the West Indian champions — Learie Constantine, Garry Sobers, Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and Roger Harper to the current champions of the T20 era. And, among them, was little Gus Logie, pulling off spectacular catches and throwing down stumps with pinpoint accuracy.

The little monster

Imran Khan won the toss, and promoted Saleem Yousuf to open with Mudassar Nazar as Viv Richards summoned his quickest bowlers, Malcolm Marshall and Tony Gray. Yousuf had probably come out with orders to hit out: he went for an almighty heave, and Logie took the first of his catches. Rameez Raja walked out. The score read 13 for 1 after 10 overs.

With the pressure mounting, Mudassar played a flat-batted stroke, and Logie snaffled his second catch. Unlike most ace fielders of the 1990s, Logie manned square-leg. He “seemed to be using the square-leg umpire as a screen for his activities on the field,” wrote Suresh Menon wrote in The Indian Express.

But then, there was the small matter of Javed Miandad to contend with. The first boundary came in the 20th over as Miandad deflected Courtney Walsh to the third-man fence and hit 2 boundaries off Winston Benjamin. The pair added 56 in 11 overs.

Then came the moment that Menon called “dismissal of the day”. Miandad and Rameez had been tapping the ball and running rather efficiently. This time Rameez flicked one to square-leg and set off.

Logie had one stump to aim at. Miandad was one of the fastest runners in the world. And yet, the bails were off before the great man could ground his bat. Logie had 3 out of 3.

Gray cleaned up Manzoor Elahi. Rameez, after a 93-ball 44 without a single boundary, hit one back to Walsh. Ijaz Ahmed hit Roger Harper “so high that Logie could have run a quick sprint around the field before the ball came down”. Harper — among the finest fielders of the era — could have gone for it, but he left it to Logie, who took it cleanly above eye level.

Walsh ran through the rest, with Logie providing another diversion by running out Asif Mujtaba. Pakistan were bowled out for 143 in 43.4 overs (it was a 45-over match). However, there was a gaffe involved in all this.

The bird fails to chirp

Walsh had left the field after catching Rameez in the 35th over. Gray bowled the 37th. Unfortunately, Dickie Bird miscalculated this, and neither did the Sharjah scoreboard show the number of overs bowled by each bowler.

As a result, with 2 overs to go, Walsh had already bowled out, but according to Bird’s calculations he had bowled 8, and when he went on to bowl the 44th, Bird did not stop him, much to the confusion of the scorers and commentators.

Walsh cleaned up Saleem Jaffar with the fourth ball, and that was that. There was a lot of ruckus, amidst which Walsh said, albeit mockingly, “don’t rob me of a wicket, maan”. Menon’s conclusion is worth a mention: “The scorers and commentators decided the fault lay with umpire Dickie Bird who had ‘allowed’ Walsh to bowl his 10th over. It was simply a case of mistaken identity. The scorers possibly felt that all Walshes are Gray in the desert.”

The stroll

Imran took himself off after 2 overs, switching to the Pavilion End, and was clobbered by Gordon Greenidge. Wasim Akram bowled a tight line, and had Greenidge dropped by Tauseef Ahmed at long-leg for 7. Jaffar bowled a couple of bouncers, but that was it.

Desmond Haynes joined in the fun as well. Elahi snared Greenidge for 74, but Haynes (59*) and Richie Richardson saw West Indies through with 70 balls to spare.

At the presentation, a livid Imran called his batsmen ‘unprofessional’ and ‘senseless’. Then came the surprise. Logie was named Man of the Match for his fielding. Bob Willis had earned the same recognition in World Cup 1983, but that was for captaincy. Being named Man of the Match for fielding was a first in international cricket.

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What followed?

– West Indies won all 3 matches to win the Champions Trophy. Sri Lanka, in particular, were humiliated: they were doing an acceptable job at 45 for 2 after Richie Richardson took West Indies to 248 for 5; then Walsh stepped in and skittled them out for 55. Walsh finished with 4.3-3-1-5.

– The only matter of interest was the second spot. India and Pakistan were pitted against each other in the last match. Imran and Wasim bowled out India for 144 before Maninder Singh hit back, reducing Pakistan to 65 for 5. It took a hard-fought fifty from Elahi to seal a 3-wicket win for Pakistan.

Brief scores:

Pakistan 143 in 43.4 overs (Rameez Raja 44; Courtney Walsh 4 for 31, Gus Logie 3 catches and 2 run outs) lost to West Indies 145 for 1 in 33.2 overs (Gordon Greenidge 74, Desmond Haynes 59*) by 9 wickets with 70 balls to spare.

Man of the Match: Gus Logie.

(Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor and Cricket Historian at CricketCountry. He blogs here and can be followed on Twitter here.)

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