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| April 26, 2007 | Thursday | Rabi-us-Sani 08, 1428 |
How Zaheer’s words riled Australia to title
FIRED up by Zaheer Abbas, the great Pakistan batsman who called them a bunch of club cricketers, rank outsiders Australia became champions when the World Cup was co-hosted by India and Pakistan in 1987.
It was the first edition of the mega event to feature neutral umpires and because of shorter daylight hours on the subcontinent, games were 50 overs per innings which became a norm from then onwards.
Ideally, people had expected the two host nations to feature in the final on Nov 8 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. But the hometown script went haywire when both Pakistan and India were knocked out in the semi-finals.
Led by Allan Border, Australia outplayed the glamorous boys of Pakistan in the first semi-final at Lahore with Steve Waugh blasting 18 runs from the final over bowled by left-arm paceman Saleem Jaffar. Remarkably, the margin of victory was also 18 runs.
Meanwhile, Graham Gooch swept India off their feet by making 115 as England won the Mumbai semi-final by 35 runs.
Australia chose to bat first in the final after winning the toss. Led by David Boon’s sold 75 off 129 balls and Mike Veletta’s late impetus (45 off 31), the Aussies made 253 for five.
England looked to be on target at 135 for two. But precisely at that point their captain Mike Gatting played a fatal reverse-sweep off his Australian counterpart and paid the price.
Waugh, who was known as the ‘Iceman’ during that tournament, cleverly mixed up his medium-paced deliveries to see the backs of threatening Allan Lamb and Phillip DeFreitas at a critical juncture.
It was always going to be tough scoring 17 from fast bowler Craig McDermott in the game’s last over. At the end of it, after Australia were crowned champions by a difference of seven runs, Border and his unheralded troops did a lap of honour in the huge stadium.
Scoreboard
AUSTRALIA:
D.C. Boon c Downton b Hemmings 75
G.R. Marsh b Foster 24
D.M. Jones c Athey b Hemmings 33
C.J. McDermott b Gooch 14
A.R. Border run out 31
M.R.J. Veletta not out 45
S.R. Waugh not out 5
EXTRAS (B-1, LB-13, W-5, NB-7) 26
TOTAL (for five wkts, 50 overs) 253
FALL OF WKTS: 1-75 (Marsh), 2-151 (Jones), 3-166 (McDermott), 4-168 (Boon), 5-241 (Border).
DID NOT BAT: S.P. O’Donnell, G.C. Dyer, T.B.A. May, B.A. Reid.
BOWLING: DeFreitas 6-1-34-0; Small 6-0-33-0; Foster 10-0-38-1; Hemmings 10-1-48-2; Emburey 10-0-44-0; Gooch 8-1-42-1.
ENGLAND:
G.A. Gooch lbw b O’Donnell 35
R.T. Robinson lbw b McDermott 0
C.W.J. Athey run out 58
M.W. Gatting c Dyer b Border 41
A.J. Lamb b Waugh 45
P.R. Downton c O’Donnell b Border 9
J.E. Emburey run out 10
P.A.J. DeFreitas c Reid b Waugh 17
N.A. Foster not out 7
G.C. Small not out 3
EXTRAS (B-1, LB-14, W-2, NB-4) 21
TOTAL (for eight wkts, 50 overs) 246
FALL OF WKTS: 1-1 (Robinson), 2-66 (Gooch), 3-135 (Gatting), 4-170 (Athey), 5-188 (Downton), 6-218 (Emburey), 7-220 (Lamb), 8-235 (DeFreitas).
DID NOT BAT: E.E. Hemmings.
BOWLING: McDermott 10-1-51-1; Reid 10-0-43-0; Waugh 9-0-37-2; O’Donnell 10-1-35-1; May 4-0-27-0; Border 7-0-38-2.
RESULT: Australia won by seven runs.
UMPIRES: R.B. Gupta (India) and Mahboob Shah (Pakistan).
MAN-OF-THE-MATCH: David Boon.
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