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World Cup 1992: India stutter and stumble and fall short by 9 runs

Even in the 1990s a Kapil Dev versus Ian Botham showdown was a contest to savour. And this time, Botham finished on top.

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Cometh the hour, cometh the man: even in 1992 Ian Botham proved he could win matches © Getty Images
Cometh the hour, cometh the man: even in 1992 Ian Botham proved he could win matches © Getty Images

February 22, 1992. A side hammered all through summer put up a gallant fight in the final moments, but could not quite pull through. Arunabha Sengupta recalls the nine-run loss suffered by India to England in their first match of the 1992 World Cup.

Beaten and beleaguered

By the time the World Cup started India were a battered brigade.

The Australian summer had been a nightmare — they had been routed in the Tests and outclassed in the finals of the three-nation tournament.  The captain was struggling for form, the rest of the middle order barely reached the average age of 20. The openers were veterans, scripting with sure hands what would be the final chapters of their careers.

It was a side with gaping bruises and holes. By the time the marquee tournament came along, they seemed to be entering the home stretch of a fatiguing marathon.

The looming shadow of their fortunes was somewhat symbolised by their outfit, a horridly dark shade of blue inky enough to border on black, perhaps mirroring the mood of most of the members of the side.

Yet, as they took on England at Perth in just the second match of the tournament, there was for a brief while a detectable spring in their steps. The ball did a bit in the morning, and the team perhaps treated the tournament as a new start. The young legs kept charging in as the balls were bowled.

And in the very first over wicketkeeper Kiran More repeated that heinous act that will gnaw at his insides till his very last day. At Lord’s two years earlier, he had dropped Graham Gooch at 36. The England captain had gone on to score a gargantuan 333. Today, he spilled the skipper’s catch again. This time the penalty would carry just a half-century, but perhaps with it swayed the result in England’s favour.

Old and new battles

The start of the game also witnessed the last of the fascinating duels between two celebrated all-rounders. Even in the 1990s a Kapil Dev versus Ian Botham showdown was a contest to savour.

Kapil cut two balls back into the English icon. Botham, opening batting for England, responded by lofting a drive to the long-off boundary; and then one Kapil delivery swung away and Botham snicked. It was victory for the Indian all-rounder. Yet, in the end the tables would be turned.

For now, with Manoj Prabhakar keeping a probing line at the other end, the Indians had the advantage.

Enter Robin Smith, and the momentum swung violently. The drives thundered through the covers and the pulls went high and long. The pacers and spinners were demolished with equal violence, all the time laced with quality.

During a brief, and definitely crucial period, Javagal Srinath and Subroto Banerjee went for 33 off 7 overs. After the sterling job of Kapil and Manoj Prabhakar with the new ball, the pressure was released and England were on their way.Soon, Gooch was trailing behind as Smith had run away to a flier.

Ravi Shastri was pulled with awesome power towards the longest boundary in the ground. And it kept on going and sailed all the way. The stroke brought up the hundred of the innings. And soon after that, Banerjee bounced and Smith pulled him with equal disdain in the same direction, across the same 90 yards, with exactly the same results.

Gooch departed after his half century, gifting his wicket to Shastri’s otherwise horrid spell. Graeme Hick essayed a superb drive over mid-off before getting a snick off Banerjee. And Smith’s brilliant 100-ball effort of 91 came to an end when captain Mohammad Azharuddin snapped up a magnificent catch at gully off Prabhakar.

The wise head on the teenaged shoulders helped Sachin Tendulkar compensate for the profligacy of Srinath, Banerjee and Shastri with ten economic overs. The lower order of England fell away to some accurate bowling, helped along by some unplanned attempts at slogging. Most of them struggled to come to terms with the pace of the wicket after their stretch on the slow tracks of New Zealand. From the secure launch-pad of 197 for three, Gooch’s men managed just 236 for nine. It was a fighting total, but the start and Smith had promised a lot more.

A formula too old

The start of the Indian response perhaps borrowed too heavily from the pages of the past.

The sheet anchor role of Shastri complemented by the swashbuckling swagger of Krishnamachari Srikkanth had served them superbly in the same land some seven summers earlier. Now, Shastri had been afflicted with a pronounced shuffle which cramped his never too versatile scoring range. And Srikkanth had long bed adieu to the faint hints of consistency he had managed in the mid-1980s.

The stand was worth 63, but even with Srikkanth’s seven boundaries the rate was restricted. In the end the dasher hit Phil DeFreitas across the line, and the edge came steepling down the throat of cover.

Azhar walked out bravely at No. 3, eager to stroke his way out of his slump. Unfortunately, Dermot Reeve ran in to send down one of the best deliveries of his career. It was the first Azhar faced and he was a good enough batsman to get a touch to it. India were two down.

A phase to remember

There followed a period of play that makes watching cricket worth every spent minute.

Tendulkar came in to strike the ball with a brilliance that left the fielders static and the spectators rapt. DeFreitas made one kick up from short of good-length on the off-stump, and the young master hopped, both feet in air, and essayed a flat batted pull to widish long-on. Reeve pitched up and was driven to the sight screen. Phil Tufnell turned one away from the off-stump and was cut at the last possible moment.

Shastri was slow but intact. Tendulkar was showing increasing signs of cutting loose. The score was way past hundred against the debit of just two wickets. Indians were gradually becoming favourites.

And then there was Botham. The ageing veteran, a far cry from the trim-waisted swing bowler he had been a decade earlier. He ran in, digging deep into the riches of the deep reservoirs of experience. The ball was pitched just short of length and cut back into the little man. Tendulkar played him with care and caution, negotiating the crafty offerings, patting a few back, and once finding enough room to manoeuvre his wrist to get a couple past mid-on.

Suddenly one cut the other way. The ball took the edge of an uncertain bat and Alec Stewart pouched a vital catch. Tendulkar walked back with 35 runs of rare class.

And then there was chaos

And the Indian innings lost its collective head.

Vinod Kambli nicked Botham to slip. Shastri, after a near eternal vigil, tried to force DeFreitas and the ball went straight up. The bowler and two fielders converged and the batsman astutely ran through the gathering. In the commotion the ball landed on the pitch, but DeFreitas had the presence of mind to snatch it up and throw down the stumps. The cramping, limping Shastri was way short of his ground. He limped all the way back, having scored 57 from 112 balls.

It was suddenly 149 for 5.

There was hope yet. Kapil Dev struck the ball fluently and Pravin Amre was a fighter to the core. Runs were scored in brisk bursts. But after this brief show of sanity, the most experienced man in the line up threw his wicket away. Kapil tried a huge hit and was caught in the deep off Reeve.

It was Banerjee who was sent in, with the asking rate in mind. He could come across as ordinary with the ball unless presented with ideal conditions. But at the same time he was one of the cleanest strikers of the ball. There was a lot of sense in promoting him ahead of Prabhakar and More.

But, at the other end hara-kiri continued. A further 44 runs were required when Amre huffed, hastened, hurried and ended up in the same end as the pace bowler.

Six runs later More was beaten by a throw from long-off.  Prabhakar lasted two balls before playing all around a straight one from Reeve.

At 201 for nine, last man Srinath joined Banerjee with a bemused look on his face.

And with all over bar the proverbial shouting, the two began striking with carefree abandon. Srinath plonked his long leg down the wicket and forced them into the outfield. At the other end Banerjee struck with power and timed them beautifully.  With the England bowlers eager to wind things up, the runs suddenly hurtled through in a late cascade.

Derek Pringle ran in to send down the penultimate over of the innings. Plenty were required, but the ball kept hitting the middle of the bat and disappearing into the country. And the last was lofted by Banerjee with élan, and soared over long on for a huge, huge six. Now India needed just 11 from the last over and the incredible last wicket stand had suddenly brought victory right back into the realm of possibilities.

And as ever so often happens, when the target seems miraculously reachable, the pretenders with the willow lose their path. Off the second ball of the last over Srinath walked along the footsteps of his several senior and illustrious colleagues, and lost his head. He charged down the wicket for some unfathomable reason, the ball ended in the hands of a man named Ian Botham, and the stumps were broken for the fourth time with an Indian batsman out of the ground. A livid Banerjee added to Srinath’s woes by giving him a caustic earful as they made their long way back to the pavilion.

Yes, it was Botham who had the last laugh and practically won it for the Englishmen with that splendid spell in the middle overs, and that final trick in the bag.

In the end the difference was just nine runs. And there were so many phases of play when the crucial ten runs could have been scored or saved. If only More had taken the catch, if only there had been a tad more discipline in the middle overs, if only all those impossible runs had not been attempted.

But such is the story of any close match.

Brief scores:

England 236 for 9 in 50 overs (Graham Gooch 51, Robin Smith 91) beat India 227 all out in 49.2 overs (Ravi Shastri 57, Krishnamachari Srikkanth 39, Sachin Tendulkar 35; Dermot Reeve 3 for 38, Ian Botham 2 for 27) by 9 runs.

Man of the Match: Ian Botham.

(Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)

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