1992

1992

Details:

Ø     Officially called the Benson & Hedges World Cup.

Ø     The fifth edition of the International Cricket Council's (ICC) cricket world cup.

Ø     Held from 22 February to 25 March 1992 in Australia and New Zealand.

Ø     Sponsored by Benson and Hedges.

Ø     The 1992 World Cup featured the seven Test teams (India, Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, West Indies, Sri Lanka, England) of the day, South Africa, who would play their first Test in 22 years in the West Indies a month after the World Cup, and Zimbabwe, who would play their first Test match later in 1992.

Innovations:

·        The 1992 World Cup was the first to feature colored player clothing, white cricket balls and black sightscreens with a number of matches being played under floodlights. These innovations had been increasingly used in One Day Internationals since World Series Cricket introduced them in the late 1970s, but they were not a feature of the first four World Cups.

·        The 1992 World Cup was also the first to be held in Southern hemisphere. It was also the first World Cup to include the South Africa national cricket team, which had been allowed to re-join the International Cricket Council as a Test-playing nation after the end of apartheid.

Tactical Innovations:

Dipak Patel

A notable feature of this World Cup was the innovative tactics employed by New Zealand Captain Martin Crowe, who opened his team's bowling with a spin bowler, Dipak Patel, rather than with a fast bowler as is usual practice. Another innovation was then unorthodox ploy of opening the batting with "pinch hitters", such as New Zealand's Mark Greatbatch.

Format:

·        The format was changed from previous tournaments in that a complete round robin replaced the use of two qualifying groups. The initial draw was released with eight competing countries and 28 round robin matches. In late 1991, South Africa were re-admitted to the International Cricket Council and the draw was amended to include them.

·        The revised draw included 36 round robin matches plus the two semi-finals and the final. The rule for calculating the target score for the team batting second in rain-affected matches was also changed. The previous rule simply multiplied the run rate of the team batting first by the number of overs available to the team batting second.

·        This rule was deemed to be too much in favor of the team batting second. In an attempt to rectify this, the target score would now be calculated by the "highest scoring overs" formula. In this system, if the team batting second had 44 overs available, their target score would be one greater than the 44 highest scoring overs of the team batting first.

·        While the reasoning behind the system was sound, the timing of rain interruptions remained problematic: as the semi-final between England and South Africa demonstrated, where a difficult but eminently reachable 22 runs off 13 balls was reduced to 22 off 7 (the least productive over, a maiden, being deducted) and finally 21 off 1 ball (the next least productive over having given 1 run).

·        It was seen that, if the interruption came during the second innings, the side batting second was at a significant disadvantage - one which was only overcome once, in fact, in England's group-stage victory over South Africa.

Administrator	ICC
Format	ODI
Tournament Format	Round Robin and Knock out
Host	Australia, New Zealand
Winners	Pakistan
Teams	9
No of Matches	39
Most Runs	Martin Crowe (NZ)(456)
Most Wickets	Wasim Akram (PAK)(18)
Man of the Series	Martin Crowe(NZ)

Semi Finals:

NZ VS PAK: 21 March 1992     

New Zealand                                                                    262-7 (50 overs)

Martin Crowe 91(83)
Wasim Akram 2/40
Mushtaq Ahmed 2/40

Pakistan                                                                            263-6(49 overs)

Inzamam-ul-Haq 60(37)
Willie Watson 2/39

Result: Pakistan won by 4 wickets.

Man of the Match: Inzamam-ul-Haq 60 (37 balls)

ENG VS SA: 22 March 1992

England                                                                             252-6(45 overs)

Graeme Hick 83 (90)
Meyrick Pringle 2/36

South Africa                                                                     232-6(43 overs)

Andrew Hudson 46 (52)
Richard Illingworth 2/46

Result: England won by 19 runs. (Duckworth-Lewis Method)

Man of the Match: Graeme Hick 83 (90 balls)

Final:

PAK VS ENG: 25 March 1992

Pakistan                                                                            249-6(50 overs)

Imran Khan 72 (110)
Derek Pringle 3/22

England                                                                             227(all out, 49.2 overs)

Neil Fairbrother 62 (70)
Mushtaq Ahmed 3/41

Result: Pakistan won by 22 runs.

Man of the Match: Wasim Akram 35 runs,3 Wickets. 

Tit Bits:

Bill Frindall

• Man of the Series introduced and Martin Crowe, New Zealand was the Man of the series.
• South Africa's semi-final against England ended in controversial circumstances when, after a rain delay, the rule in use for revising target scores in rain-affected matches revised their target from 22 runs from 13 balls to an impossible 21 runs from one ball. This rule was replaced for One-day International matches in Australia after the World Cup, and it was eventually superseded by the Duckworth-Lewis method for the 1999 World Cup onwards. According to the late Bill Frindall, the revised D/L target for the match would have been four runs to tie or five to win from the final ball, although Cricinfo states that, under Duckworth-Lewis, South Africa's target from the original 45 overs would have been 273, and then this would have been reduced to 257 from 43 overs, i.e. five runs more than they were set under the "highest scoring overs" rule.
• In Round Robin stage, proved the surprise packet of the tournament, winning their first seven games to finish on top of the table after the round robin. The other hosts, Australia, were one of the pre-tournament favorites but lost their first two matches. They recovered somewhat to win four of the remaining six, but narrowly missed out on the semi-finals. The West Indies also finished with a 4-4 record, but were just behind Australia on run-rate. South Africa made a triumphant return to international cricket with a win over Australia at the SCG in their first match. They and England had solid campaigns and easily qualified for the semis, despite upset losses to Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe respectively.
• India had a disappointing tournament and never looked likely to progress beyond the round robin. Sri Lanka was still establishing them at the highest level and beat only Zimbabwe (who did not yet have Test status) and South Africa. New Zealand were defeated only twice in the tournament, both times by Pakistan, in their final group match and in the semi-final.
• Pakistan had been lucky to be in the semi-finals at all: following only one victory in their first five matches, they were also fortunate to scrape a point from the washed-out match against England which appeared to be heading for a heavy English victory (Pak 74 all out, Eng 24/1): eventually they finished one point ahead of Australia with an inferior run-rate.
• The Benson & Hedges World Cup was lifted by Imran Khan, captain of the Pakistan who got first time for his country.