Two more historic moments from my cricket archives

After the last article where I chronicled three important cricketing moments from my archives which I could recall very vividly, I went over the archives once again. And alas, I found two more historic moments from 1999. See the first three here. I am sure I can find many more if I try to go over the images again and try to recall the matches. While going over these archives, I also got present to the fact that I remember the 1996, 1999 and 2003 World Cups much more clearly than the 2011 World Cup which we won. Well, those were the days!!

1999 India – Paksitan Test Series

The 1999 India Pakistan test series was as dramatic as it can get. It was the first tour by the Pakistan team to India (apart from 1996 WC) in more than a decade and Indo-Pak relations were on a boil at that time. Even before the first ball was bowled, some Shiv Sainiks damanged the Kotla pitch which made the first match to be scheduled in Madras instead. India lost that match by some 12 runs after Sachin’s dismissal following a brilliant century. His dismissal by an unnecessary shot caused an unlikely collapse resulting in India losing the match.

The second test match was eventually held in Delhi and it was forever written in history books for what happened in the 4th innings. Pakistani batsmen fell prey to the guile and spin of Anil Kumble on a chilly February day. He became only the second player after Jim Laker to take all 10 wickets in an innings. The fact that I watched every ball of this last innings on TV made the memories even more sweeter.

An eventful series - as dramatic as it gets

An eventful series - as dramatic as it gets

Though the series was shared 1-1 and as you can see in the pic, both Wasim Akram and Mohammad Azharuddin lifted the trophy, there was another controversial Test Match after the series in Calcutta as part of the Asian Championship. It was marred by a controversial run out of Sachin Tendulkar which led to crowd trouble and I still remember Sachin and Azhar going around the stadium asking the people to calm down. Eventually the match was finished in front of empty stands as the crowds were evicted by the police. India lost the match. Shoaib Akhtar, who was at perhaps the peak of his form at this time, was at the centre of the controversy in this match. He bowled some unplayable deliveries to the Indian batsmen but his involvement in the Sachin run out turned into a big controversy. As I said, as dramatic as it gets.

Read this Cricinfo report to get a feel of what happened that day.

Pitch Invasions during the 1999 World Cup

Pitch Invasions during the 1999 World Cup

1999 World Cup  and security fiasco

The 1999 World Cup in England saw fantastic performances by Lance Klusener, Steve Waugh, Shane Warne, Rahul Dravid and many more players, but it was also one tournament where crowd trouble threatened to go out of hands, for the first time outside the subcontinent. The tournament saw a lot of Asian fans watching the games and they would celebrate by running onto the field after the end of play. This turned into a nightmare for the security staff as they were unable to handle the crowd. Luckily no untoward incident happened, but it would not have been a surprise if something tragic would have happened. The below pic taken after a Pakistan match shows it all.

Three Cricketing Moments Immortalized in my Cricket Archives

Ever since I found my cricket archives collection at my Delhi home which was gathering dust for over 10 years, I have been going through them and recalling some of the old memories I had of important moments in cricket history. These moments mark important milestones in cricketing history and I am going to share three of them here.

The Shiv Sainiks damaging the Kotla pitch

The Shiv Sainiks damaging the Kotla pitch

Kotla Pitch Fiasco before Indo-Pak Test Match

In what was a major fiasco for security agencies, Shiv Sainiks damaged the pitch at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in early January 1999 just before the start of the first Test Match. It is to be recalled that this was the first Pakistan tour after a long time and there were a lot of politics and emotions involved. The match was later moved to Madras with the second match scheduled for Delhi (the one where Kumble took all 10 wickets in an innings). Here this picture captures the Shiv Sainiks damaging the pitch in the middle of the night.

Australian team celebrating after the chokers choked

Australian team celebrating after the chokers choked

1999 World Cup Semi Final

Nobody can forget the 1999 World Cup semi final between Australia and South Africa which was dramatically tied leading to Australia entering the finals. It is to be recalled that South Africa needed 9 runs to win in the final over with Lance Klusener, the best player and the man of the series in that world cup. Klusener hammered first two balls of the over for boundaries, with a South African win looking almost certain. As Steve Waugh brought all his fielders in, there was almost a run out on the third ball, which eventually materialized on the 4th ball. With this being the last wicket, the match ended in a tie. See the video here, and as you can see, the South Africans choked, like they have done many times.

Sir Donald Bradman with Sachin and Warne

Sir Donald Bradman with Sachin and Warne

Sachin and Warne meeting Bradman in 1998

It became a talk of the whole country when Bradman’s wife saw Sachin play on television and reminded Bradman of how much Sachin resembled him. After that, Bradman invited Sachin and Shane Warne to come visit him, and their pictures were splashed all over the newspapers. (I cut one of those :P) Coming to what happened during their discussions, read the snippet below. To put this visit in perspective, Sachin was 25 years at that time.

Bradman asked Tendulkar whether he moved before the ball left the bowler’s hand. To which the younger batsman rather modestly replied, “I don’t know.” With a glint in his eyes, Sir Donald tapped Tendulkar’s shoulder: “I think you do. You begin your movement before the bowler balls, otherwise you wouldn’t have the time to play the kind of shots you do.”

Anil Kumble’s 10 wicket haul in my cricket archives

All his victims that day

All his victims that day

If you have to pick the top 10, or even the top 5 cricketing moments in India’s cricket history, you can not miss the 10 wicket haul by Anil Kumble. His 10 for 74 in the second innings at Delhi vs Pakistan remains only the second instance of a bowler taking all 10 wickets in an innings. And boy he deserves it, for I have not seen a harder trier on the cricket field. And perhaps, he was won India the most test matches by any individual player. One important fact which many people miss is that he took those 10 wickets in one spell of 21.3 overs, conceding only 49 runs in the process.

It was a chilly February morning (8th Feb, 1999) and I remember watching the match on TV with my family members. At first when he started picking wickets and his deliveries started to zip and sizzle out of every crack at the Ferozshah Kotla, it was no surprise. But when he took his 7th wicket, I remember I jumped up and exclaimed, “Abe saari lega kya?” (Will he take all?) After all, I was a 15 year old back then, and didn’t even knew that someone has already taken 10 wickets once in history. It was like an unbelievable and unforgettable burst of emotions all over the place when he finally took Wasim Akram as his last victim.

The celebrations at the Kotla

The celebrations at the Kotla

As I had written in my previous post, I used to archive cricket stories and news coming in newspapers and magazines back then. When I was digitizing my archives a few months ago, I could not miss reliving that moment as I found cutting newspaper after newspaper cutting marking the historic day. You can see some of them in this post.

Kumble's Homecoming

Kumble's Homecoming

These images, more than anything, captures the man Anil Kumble was. He did not stop after this record breaking feat, instead he went on to reclaim almost every Indian bowling record. He became India’s first spinner to take 300 wickets in both Tests and ODIs, ending at 619 wickets only behind Muralitharan and Warne. He played many important knocks with the bat also, and no bowler could claim of getting his wicket easily.

To conclude, he was as much a player as he was an artist with the cricket ball. He relied on metronomic accuracy and steep bounce and change in pace off the pitch to tame his opponents. He, more than any spinner, relied more on bounce and change in pace than spin. His character and humility also makes him the wonderful person that he is, and he demonstrated that when he got the captaincy of the team in his last few years on that controversial Australian tour, and later as the captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore IPL team.

Political Adulation

Political Adulation

World Cup 2011 Review

This was the World Cup everybody hoped for after the debacle in 2007. With India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka reaching the last four, and an Indian victory, the ICC could not have asked for a better script. This World Cup will also be remembered for a dream of a billion people getting fulfilled, and Sachin Tendulkar getting this one final jewel in his bag of crowns, which was no secret. India won the World Cup after 28 years, putting Dhoni right among the top when it comes to captaincy greats.

This World Cup will also be known for some extraordinary and unexpected performances from few players, like how Pakistan rallied behind Shahid Afridi the bowler to surprise many and reaching the semis, or how Yuvraj marked his comeback with superb all round performance which won him four man of match and the man of the series award. It was also marked by the clear end of Australian dominance in ODI cricket. England proved the most entertaining team of the tournament, losing to Ireland and then winning against South Africa, who in-fact, did a deja-vu by confirming their ‘chokers’ tag by losing to New Zealand in the quarters.

Indian team after the victory

Indian team after the victory

How my predictions fared?
I predicted India and Australia as favorites before the World Cup and India took home the trophy. However, my other predictions were not upto the mark and you can see below how they fared –

  • Most sixes in single over – I predicted two overs where all balls will be hit for sixes but this World Cup did not produce even a single such over.
  • Most sixes in an innings by a team – New Zealand hit 13 sixes in the game against Pakistan while I predicted 25.. Did the bowlers bowl too well?
  • Most sixes in an innings by a player – Ross Taylor hit 7 sixes in the above said game, while I predicted 10.
  • Most sixes by a player in tournament – Ross Taylor hit 14 sixes, the highest in the tournament while my prediction stood at 25
  • Fastest Fifty – 23 balls by Kieron Pollard v Netherlands, very close to my prediction of 20 balls
  • Fastest Century – 50 balls by Kevin O Brien of Ireland v England. This was one hell of a knock which shook England and bettered my prediction of 65 balls.
  • Highest total – 370/4 by India in the first match against Bangladesh was the highest total, and no team managing to get more than 400 as I predicted. The associate teams seems to have improved.
  • Highest Individual Score – 175 by Sehwag, again in the first game itself and the 200* by God still remain the highest score in an ODI.
  • Hat Tricks – Here I was right on the target with Lasith Malinga and Kemar Roach providing the two instances of hat-tricks in this world cup.
  • Most Wickets – Afridi and Zaheer Khan took 21 wickets each while I predicted 22-25 wickets. Afridi came from no-where and proved to be the best and most intelligent bowler on the subcontinent pitches.
  • Most Runs – Dilshan emerged the top scored with 500 runs with Sachin following behind with 482 runs. My prediction of 650 runs was way off the mark here.
  • Strike Rates with runs over 300 – Again as I predicted, Sehwag made 380 runs at a strike rate of 122 to emerge the player with the highest strike rate with more than 300 runs.

Other notable stats
Apart from the above predictions, there were some other important statistics which need a mention. They are :-

  • Highest run rate in any World Cup – This World Cup saw the average run rate of 5.03, which was the first time it has crossed 5 in all World Cup history.
  • Highest number of centuries – This World Cup saw 24 centuries which was the highest ever in any World Cup, surpassing the 21 in the 2003 World Cup.
  • Yuvraj Singh scored 362 runs and took 15 wickets, grabbing four man of the match awards, only the third player after Arvinda De Silva and Lance Klusener to do so. He was only the fourth player and second Indian after Kapil Dev to achieve the doulbe of 300 runs and ten wickets in a single WC.
  • People came out on the roads to celebrate

    People came out on the roads to celebrate

Overall, it was a world cup where spinners came into their own. They opened the bowling attacks quite regularly with every team, and also featured among the major wicket takers. All that can attributed to the slow pitches of the subcontinent aided by the fact that this was the end of a season. Pakistan and South Africa were the best bowling units in the World Cup, and India and Sri Lanka the best batting units. In the end, it was cricket that won and that is what matters.