by The Professor » Wed Mar 22, 2017 9:40 am
On this day in 1992 one of the most farcical World Cup games was played out between England and South Africa.
South Africa won the toss and elected to bowl with a place in the World Cup final at stake.
England lost two early wickets in the form of Graham Gooch (2) and Ian Botham (21). Graeme Hick put the show back on the road with one of his more impressive performances with a 93 ball 83 despite some slow and canny bowling from South Africa. He had the barest of support with Alec Stewart helping him with 33 runs and Neil Fairbrother with 28. The lower middle order faired even worse until Dermot Reeve came out and rasped, what we would now call, a T20 style innings worth 25 with a strike rate of 178.57. England's total was 252. Meyrick Pringle had the best figures of 2-36.
South Africa's chase was steadily accumulating. In the same way as the English innings, key batsmen got settled but did not push on to big scores. Andrew Hudson provided the impetus with 46 at the top and Jonty Rhodes provided 43 in 38 balls batting at six and seemed to be leading South Africa to the win. Heavy rain struck with South Africa needing 22 runs off 13 balls....and the focus became less the cricket and more the rules.
As soon as the rain struck Gooch led his team off the pitch, much to the crowd's disdain.
To fully understand what happened next we must put ourselves in the shoes....or potentially the hats....of the umpires. The rule that they would have consulted first read thusly: "If the innings of the team batting second is delayed or interrupted and it is not possible for that team to have the opportunity of batting for the same number of overs as the team batting first, the overs to be bowled shall be reduced at the rate of 14 overs per hour for time lost." No sooner had this rule been read, the rain stopped. One over was deducted. This brought another rule in to play: "If, due to suspension of play, the number of overs in the innings of the team batting second has to be revised, their target score shall be the runs scored by the team batting first from the equivalent number of highest-scoring overs, plus one. In a rain-interrupted match, or a match interrupted by any other cause, it should be noted that the important figure is the target score, which in effect is set by the umpires when they decide on the number of overs able to be bowled to the team batting second." Clear?
This meant that England's worst over - which was a maiden - was knocked off the target score...meaning it stayed exactly the same. By the time this was figured out two overs had been lost which meant that South Africa needed 22 runs....from 1 ball. They scored a single from that ball and that was that.
One more for fans of the rule books than fans of the game.
"It has been said of the unseen army of the dead, on their everlasting march, that when they are passing a rural cricket ground the Englishman falls out of the ranks for a moment to look over the gate and smile."