The defending champions had every thing going their way when they entered the field for the 2ndsemi-final. They were on a winning momentum, in form, playing in front of home crowd and had better bowling and batting than the opposition. England on the other hand had staggered to the semi-final. Vengsarkar was ruled out due to injury in what proved to be the final match of Indian maestro Sunil Gavaskar. Graham Gooch was the hero for England who handled the spinners with perfection to lead his team into the final. While hero of the previous World Cup, Kapil Dev proved to be villain this time when he unnecessarily gave away his wicket at a critical juncture of the match.
England were asked by Kapil to bat keeping early moisture in mind. But the ball did not move at all and English top order had no trouble negotiating him and Prabhakar. Maninder Singh got the first breakthrough by removing Robinson at the score of 40. One-down Athey could not get a move on but Graham Gooch along with Captain Mike Gatting put on a solid partnership without wasting much time. They swept and pulled the Indian left-arm spinners effectively negating whatever turn they extracted from the pitch and ran between the wickets for quick singles. Third wicket stand of 117 runs in 19 overs was a turning point as it provided a launching pad for Allen Lamb to exercise his finishing prowess with an air of indemnity. Maninder removed both of them; first Gatting who played-on for 56 off 62 balls and then Gooch who was caught by Srikkanth for a magnificent 115 off 136 balls with 11 fours. Allen Lamb made a rapid 32 off 29 balls to help England post a par score of 254 for 6 in 50 overs. Maninder took 3 for 54 while Captain Kapil 2 for 38.
Crowd was egging on the Indian openers when they strolled out for an expected not-too-difficult run-chase. But Wankhede dipped into pin-drop silence when Phil DeFreitas clipped the off-stump of the farewell guy Gavaskar for just 4 runs. Srikkanth and Navjot Sidhu could not keep up the scoring rate as English bowlers tied down these two otherwise dashers so much so that they both could not hit a single boundary. Chandarkant Pandit provided some momentum to the innings along with Muhammad Azharuddin. Eddie Hemmings was taken for 27 runs in his first 3 overs but he came back strongly later on to take four wickets. At 168 for 4 Azhar and Kapil Dev were looking set to take India home but Kapil hit one down the throat of Gatting who had specifically placed himself at the deep mid-wicket boundary for this purpose. There was no need for him to be extra-adventurous at that time as the asking rate was well under six. He made a quick-fire 32 off 21 balls. Hemmings also removed Azhar and Shastri in quick succession after a few overs. They were still the favorites when they needed 50 in the last 10 overs with 5 wickets remaining but the departure of Azhar who was set pressed the panic button among Indians and they continued to lose wickets. Eventually they were all-out for 219 in the 46th over. Graham Gooch was named the Man of the Match.
A dream was shattered and a nation went into mourning for many days to come. Both the hosts were eliminated in the semi-final stage breaking the hearts of more than a billion. Perhaps a meeting in the final of the two arch-enemies was meant to be a dream only by the Almighty as no one could have imagined what tragedy would have resulted in an unexpected result on that day.
England were asked by Kapil to bat keeping early moisture in mind. But the ball did not move at all and English top order had no trouble negotiating him and Prabhakar. Maninder Singh got the first breakthrough by removing Robinson at the score of 40. One-down Athey could not get a move on but Graham Gooch along with Captain Mike Gatting put on a solid partnership without wasting much time. They swept and pulled the Indian left-arm spinners effectively negating whatever turn they extracted from the pitch and ran between the wickets for quick singles. Third wicket stand of 117 runs in 19 overs was a turning point as it provided a launching pad for Allen Lamb to exercise his finishing prowess with an air of indemnity. Maninder removed both of them; first Gatting who played-on for 56 off 62 balls and then Gooch who was caught by Srikkanth for a magnificent 115 off 136 balls with 11 fours. Allen Lamb made a rapid 32 off 29 balls to help England post a par score of 254 for 6 in 50 overs. Maninder took 3 for 54 while Captain Kapil 2 for 38.
Crowd was egging on the Indian openers when they strolled out for an expected not-too-difficult run-chase. But Wankhede dipped into pin-drop silence when Phil DeFreitas clipped the off-stump of the farewell guy Gavaskar for just 4 runs. Srikkanth and Navjot Sidhu could not keep up the scoring rate as English bowlers tied down these two otherwise dashers so much so that they both could not hit a single boundary. Chandarkant Pandit provided some momentum to the innings along with Muhammad Azharuddin. Eddie Hemmings was taken for 27 runs in his first 3 overs but he came back strongly later on to take four wickets. At 168 for 4 Azhar and Kapil Dev were looking set to take India home but Kapil hit one down the throat of Gatting who had specifically placed himself at the deep mid-wicket boundary for this purpose. There was no need for him to be extra-adventurous at that time as the asking rate was well under six. He made a quick-fire 32 off 21 balls. Hemmings also removed Azhar and Shastri in quick succession after a few overs. They were still the favorites when they needed 50 in the last 10 overs with 5 wickets remaining but the departure of Azhar who was set pressed the panic button among Indians and they continued to lose wickets. Eventually they were all-out for 219 in the 46th over. Graham Gooch was named the Man of the Match.
A dream was shattered and a nation went into mourning for many days to come. Both the hosts were eliminated in the semi-final stage breaking the hearts of more than a billion. Perhaps a meeting in the final of the two arch-enemies was meant to be a dream only by the Almighty as no one could have imagined what tragedy would have resulted in an unexpected result on that day.
Published in sportpulse.com
ReplyDelete- http://sportpulse.net/article/upset-which-broke-billion-hearts