AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF THE 1992 WORLD CUP: PART I

Note: This is part fact and mostly unadulterated, poor fiction. No one should read this.

PROLOGUE

India had been in Australia for 85 days when the World Cup kicked off in Auckland. It had been a miserable 3 months peppered with little moments of joy. Australia thumped India at what eventually became the unconquerable fort, The Gabbatoir, inside 4 days. As was the practice those days, the action shifted to coloured clothing. India kicked off things with a thrilling tie at the WACA against the West Indies and surprisingly thrashed Australia by 107 runs after scoring just 208 runs.

After 4 matches each, Australia had 6 points, India 5 and West Indies 0. The white ball took a break now and the pyjama party began. India meekly surrendered, again inside 4 days, in the Boxing Day test. They made a "propah" fist of things in the heavily rain affected New Year Test. At 114/6, still 56 runs in arrears, India appeared to end a near 11 year winless streak in Australia but the classic Indian inability to remove the tail and a classic Captain (not so) Grumpy rearguard saw the home side through before the red ball took yet another intermission.

The three week break had done the Windies a world of good as they took advantage of the fatigue of the 2 teams that had played back to back tests and they duly won 2 matches in a row. Another abandoned match and India's defeat to Australia in the latter's last match meant that West Indies were now 1 point ahead of India in the points table. The winner of the last match between India & West Indies would play Australia in the final. Richardson won the toss and chose to bat but the Calypso Kings were sluggish and the puny target of 175 was comfortably passed thanks to 50s from Srikkanth & Tendulkar. 

India were thrashed in the 1st final and Australia won a tight contest by 6 runs to win the Benson & Hedges Tri-Series. The gruelling tour, for one last time, switched to white clothing as Australia & India began the traditional Australia Day Test in Adelaide. India shot out Australia for 145 and managed an 80 run lead after being reduced to 70/6. The last wicket pair of Srinath & Raju added an invaluable 33 runs including an all run 5 thanks to the very long Adelaide Oval straight boundary. The pitch eased out and the home side applied themselves to set India a daunting total of 372. 

After a torrid time throughout the tour, the Indian skipper Azhar came to the party. He scored a furious boundary laden 100. At 6/283, India were looking at an outside chance of a miraculous victory but Billy McDermott, aided by the new ball, removed Azhar and Australia scraped through with a 38 run victory and with it sealed the series 3-0. The mentally and physically drained Indians had nothing left in the tank and they simply subsided by 300 runs in the 5th test to lose the series 4-0.

THE RECHARGE

There was a 17 day break between the 5th test and India's opening match on the opening day albeit the 2nd match of the 1992 World Cup. The Indian team was not a happy family. There was a North Zone faction, a West Zone faction. Inside the North Zone faction, Kapil Dev & Manoj Prabhakar didn't see eye to eye. The former never rated the latter and the latter practically hated the former. Kapil also gave a cold shoulder to the young tyro Srinath. Except Srikkanth and Tendulkar, most batsmen struggled for runs. All this without even considering the heavy defeats, in both tests and ODIs, in the gigantic, demanding grounds of Australia.

FIRST HALF

In the opening match of the World Cup, the Kiwis, who had announced their squad more than a year before the tournament, sprang a mini-upset on the defending champions Australia. Later in the day, a couple of time zones apart, Gooch called correctly and chose to bat. After losing Botham early, the captain & Robin Smith added 110 runs for the 2nd wicket. Later at 3/192 in the 42nd over with a well-settled Smith and Stewart, Reeve, Lewis to come, England looked set to post a total in excess of 260. Kapil & Prabhakar hit back in the death overs to restrict England to 236. 

Srikkanth continued his good form from the B&H series scoring 39 with 7 4s to give India a solid start but India lost him & Azhar with the score on 63. India were comfortably placed at 2/126 with Shastri & Tendulkar looking very solid. Just like their opener in 1987 when India managed to muck up a chase of 270 from 207/2, India managed a sequel with a series of disastrous run outs to end up losing the match by 9 runs. An utter lack of confidence after repeated drubbings in the previous month.

The action then shifted from the south west corner of Perth to the north east corner of Mackay where the Ray Mitchell Oval was to make its international debut while hosting India play Sri Lanka. India & Sri Lanka had evenly split their previous 6 ODI meetings. Sri Lanka had already played 2 matches going 1-1. Rain reduced the match to 20 overs. Sri Lanka won the toss & inserted India in after a helicopter was used to dry the pitch. India also bought into the pinch hitting fever and sent Kapil to open with Srikkanth. 

Using the juicy, overcast conditions Ramanayake & Wickramasinghe reduced India to 2/12 after 4 overs as the Kapil experiment failed. Azharuddin found form and along with young Tendulkar took India to 2/40 at the midway point. The conditions eased a bit allowing the duo to cut loose as they quickly added 50 runs in the next 5 overs. Azhar fell after a well-made 52 with score on 93 in the 16th over. Tendulkar went berserk in the slog overs ending up on 76 off just 44 balls as India piled 55 runs in the last 27 balls. Kapil & Prabhakar bowled tightly and accounted for Mahanama & Gurusinha. De Silva & Ranatunga took advantage of Srinath's inexperience but couldn't repeat Azhar's & Tendulkar's pyrotechnics and India put up their 1st points on the board with a 59 run victory.

India stayed in Queensland but still had to travel almost 1000 km to reach Brisbane to take on the home side. India had won 1 and lost 9 matches across formats against Australia in the previous 3 months. Australia won the toss and batted first. Kapil took 2 wickets in his first spell with just 31 runs on the board. Boon and Dean Jones consolidated with the latter steadily upping the pace. The Aussies were looking ominous at 198/4 with Jones & Moody going bonkers in the death overs but the Indian bowlers made yet another comeback to restrict Australia to 237/9 when a total of 250 seemed easy.

Srikkanth huffed and puffed to a 10 ball duck. Shastri's struggles at the top of the order continued. Rain interrupted play in the 17th over with India on 45/1. 3 overs were reduced but the target only reduced by 2 due to the ridiculous new rain rule, one of Richie Benaud's rare failures in his 40 year career as a cricketer and commentator. Shastri fell as soon as play resumed but Azhar continued his form from Mackay and kept chipping away at the target. Kapil came and went after a quickfire run-a-ball 21. India needed 108 runs in a little over 14 overs. 

Azhar & Manjrekar added 66 runs in less than 9 overs as Border ended the partnership with a brilliant direct hit. Azhar fell, cruelly, 7 short of a well deserved 100. Manjrekar continued his cameo but eventually he was also run out with 20 runs needed in 12 balls. 7 off McDermott's last over meant India needed 13 off the last over to beat Australia for the 1st time in 6 ODIs. More clipped the 1st 2 balls of Moody's over to square leg for 4s and suddenly India needed 5 off 4. He tried to repeat it but this time a bit finer and ended up losing his middle stump. 

A comical bit of running between wickets meant that India needed 4 off the last ball. Srinath hit it miles in the air and Raju thought it was 6 and started celebrating but Steve Waugh ran around the wide mid-on boundary only to drop the catch but he composed himself to throw the ball wide to the keeper's end. Raju's initial miscalculation meant that he lost precious time and was urgently trying to tie the match and dove into the crease. The pressure got to Boon and he dropped the ball and Raju's desperation did not go in vain and we had the 1st ever tie in a World Cup match! What a thrillah!

After a 2 day break came the most anticipated clash of the World Cup: India vs Pakistan. It had taken 5 World Cups when it should have actually taken just 4 but Australia & England decided to play spoilsport in Lahore & Bombay respectively. Azhar won the toss and India batted. Srikkanth, who had had a very good B&H cup just 2 months ago, suddenly lost form and was out after an uncharacteristically painful 39 ball 5. Azhar, Jadeja, Kambli, Tendulkar all made decent contributions and took India to 148/5 in the 40th over. Kapil joined Tendulkar and made a classic swashbuckling 35 off just 26 balls to add 60 in just 48 balls. Tendulkar made his 1st World Cup 50 and India ended up setting a total of 217 in 49 overs. One over was cut short due to Pakistan's slow rate.

Kapil & Prabhakar continued to bowl probing opening spells and picked up a wicket each to leave Pakistan reeling at 2/17. Sohail & Miandad batted patiently for almost 25 overs to add 90 runs when Tendulkar got Sohail caught off a full toss. Salim Malik came into bat and immediately hit two 4s. The seniors convinced Azhar to bring back Prabhakar and he duly delivered by removing the dangerous Malik for 12. A poor call by Miandad accounted for the run out of skipper Imran Khan and a few balls later Raju beat Akram in flight to reduced Pakistan to 6/141 from 3/127. 

Javagal Srinath's searing yorker removed Miandad just 3 balls later leading to 88 crore Indians heaving a collective sigh of relief. The infamous Sharjah 6 was still a wound that did not heal and probably never would. Moin Khan tried to resist but the Indian bowlers, who had bowled wonderfully through out the night, completed the last rites to score a memorable 43 run win in the first ever World Cup meeting against the arch-enemies. 

At the half-way stage, India were sitting in 3rd place with 5 points behind England & New Zealand who had won all of their matches. Not bad for a very tired and faction filled side. We will see what happened next in Part II of this alternate history post.