Trendpak: PAKISTAN WORLD CUP HISTORY

BY ZUNAIRA SHAH

1992 Cricket World Cup

The 1992 Cricket World Cup had many firsts to its credit. It was the first World Cup with white cricket balls, coloured clothing and black sightscreens. But what dwarfed all the firsts was a second. Yes, I am talking about the winners of the fifth edition of the quadrennial event – Pakistan (it became the second Asian nation to win the World Cup after India had won it in 1983).

The journey from being on the brink of ouster, to lifting the World Cup, is a heady cocktail of luck, resilience, and the never-say-die spirit. Just like human evolution, Pakistan’s campaign at the Benson & Hedges World Cup can be divided into three stages – pre tournament, downfall and resurrection.

Early tournament blues: Pakistan’s tryst with misery started well before the first ball was bowled. Just before the tournament, Waqar Younis, who - in the words of Imran Khan – was bowling at his fastest at that time, had to return home. Then, there were injuries to flamboyant southpaw Saeed Anwar and fiery speedster Ata-ur-Rehman, rendering them unfit for the tournament and delivering a huge blow to their war plans. If that was not enough, Pakistan captain Imran Khan was not fully fit and is believed to have played his matches after taking pain killing injections. As a result, Pakistan had Aamir Sohail, Inzamam-ul-Haq and some unsung others, like Iqbal Sikandar and Waseem Haider, who were never heard of- pre or post the World Cup.

Shaky start: The Pakistani cricket team has always carried the reputation of playing like kings on a day and paupers on the very next. A team abound with talented players but at the same time struggling with discipline. The team lived up to this image perfectly in the initial stages of the tournament. It started its campaign on a disastrous note, losing to West Indies by 10 wickets. Pakistan, which was one of the semi-finalists at the 1987 World Cup, was staring at the ouster, having won just one of their first five matches.

Had it not been for the rain gods and a bit of luck, Pakistan would have been sent home packing. In their round-robin game against England, Pakistan had its back to the walls after being bowled out for a paltry total of 74 and was all set to lose, with England comfortably placed at 24/1 after 8 overs. However, gods connived and a spell of rain saved the day for Pakistan, leaving the match as no result with both teams taking one point each.

Pakistan beat New Zealand in their final league match and scraped through to the semis, edging out Australia which had 8 points, one less than Pakistan.

The crowning glory: Pakistan and England faced off at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in the final. After receiving two early blows, Imran Khan and Javed Miandad rescued the team and steadied the innings adding 139 runs for the third wicket. Inzamam (42 off 35 balls) and Wasim Akram (33 off 18 balls) added some quick runs towards the end of the innings and took the team’s total to a competitive 249 for the loss of 6 wickets.

England also got off to a shaky start and lost four wickets with just 69 on the board. Neil Fairbrother and Allan Lamb then started the rearguard action and took England to 141 for 4. Just when they were looking to have recovered, Wasim Akram struck with the wickets of Lamb and Chris Lewis in consecutive deliveries, leaving English at 141 for six.

The writing was pretty much on the wall when Fairbrother was caught by wicketkeeper Moin Khan off the bowling of Aqib Javed with score reading 180 runs. It was a matter of time before Imran Khan wrapped up the English innings, accounting for the final wicket of Richard Illingworth, thus winning the match by 22 runs and sealing Pakistan’s fate as the winners of the 1992 World Cup.

T-20 WORLD CUP 2009

It was labeled as the clash of the titans. Pakistan versus Sri Lanka - Final match of the Twenty20 World Cup, 2009. Pakistan team made the country proud by winning the championship and putting up such a great show that they deserve a whole-hearted nation-wide celebration for such an immaculate victory. Pakistan Rocked!

Amid the cheers and joyous chanting all around me, I had decided way before today’s historic match was over that I am going to write about the victorious championship of Pakistan. With the kind of start Pakistan team had put up against Sri Lanka team, it was more than evident that the Pakistan team was out on to the savage play and determined to win the Twenty20 World Cup Championship.

Sri Lanka won the toss and decided to bat first. Pakistan came head-on on Sri Lanka by taking 2 wickets in the first two overs, which got to 4 wickets at the end of the 6th over. Aamir Shehzad picked the first wickets followed by Abdul Razzak who took 3 wickets, after which Umer Gul and Shahid Afridi, both managed to take one wicket each totaling to 6 down at the end of 15 overs.

The Sri Lanka team Captain Kumar Sangakkara kept his cool and stood his ground against the immense pressure and batted well through the match. He achieved his 50 runs of the final match on 44 balls. The last 5 overs saw a change of the winds when Sri Lanka played aggressively to make as many runs as possible to cross at least 100 runs and managed to go from 79-6 to 138-6 at the end of Sri Lanka’ innings. Sangakkara performed extremely well for the team and ended up with 64 on 52 balls. Still, 138 was not such a deadly target for Pakistan and I knew deep inside, Pakistan is going to win.

Just this morning I was reading an article written by Avijit Ghosh, ‘Why Pakistan is in T20 final’and he was referring to his article ‘Why Pakistan must win Twenty20 World Cup’ for which he received a lot of cynicism and criticism from the Indians who even labeled him unpatriotic but he knew he was talking facts and logic and this went against the emotional thought process of many patriots. His article was purely enlightening and I would quote his words on the Pakistan Captain M. Younus’ approach to the Twenty20 World Cup referred to by the author as a ‘karo ya maro’ spirit (do or die) approach. Well, the spirit was strikingly vivid during the final match.

Pakistan’s innings started with the opening batsmen Shahzaib Hasan and Kamran Akmal. Pakistan needed 139 runs to win. Kamran Akmal got out by Jayasuriya on 37 runs and Shahid Afridi came for the batting to raise the score from 49 runs at the 7th over. Pakistan needed 89 runs from 74 balls to win the match. Shahzaib was caught out by Murlidharan at 23 runs on 19 balls. Lesith Malinga’s bowling was more like trying to hit the batsman than the bat or the wicket but the Pakistan batsmen put up a good defense against the ferocious bowler.

Sri Lanka made a comeback in Pakistan’s innings by giving extremely tough time to Pakistani batsmen. Shahid Afridi was targeted by both Malinga and Murlidharan and it sure was difficult to make runs. But Boom Boom’s surprising sixes on just the right time made sure the run rate was kept steady for the win. Pakistan embraced a momentous victory over Sri Lanka by 8 wickets. The Twenty20 World Cup 2009 was victoriously owned by Paksitan. Boom Boom Afridi was declared Man of the Match.

Jeevay Jeevay Pakistan! Pakistan Zindabad! Our team made us proud. The whole nation is proud of our fabulous cricket team!

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