1992 Cricket World Cup

Benson & Hedges World Cup 1992

Official logo
Dates	22 February – 25 March 1992
Administrator(s)	International Cricket Council
Cricket format	One Day International
Tournament format(s)	Round-robin and Knockout
Host(s)	Australia  New Zealand
Champions	Pakistan (1st title)
Runners-up	England
Participants	9
Matches	39
Player of the series	Martin Crowe[1]
Most runs	Martin Crowe (456)
Most wickets	Wasim Akram (18)
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The 1992 Cricket World Cup (known as the Benson & Hedges World Cup 1992 for sponsorship reasons) was the fifth Cricket World Cup, the premier One Day International cricket tournament for men's national teams, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was held in Australia and New Zealand from 22 February to 25 March 1992, and finished with Pakistan beating England by 22 runs in the final to become the World Cup champions for the first time.
The tournament is remembered for the controversial "rain rule".^[2]

Australia and New Zealand were awarded the hosting rights in January 1989, defeating a joint India-Pakistan bid after those two nations had hosted the preceding 1987 World Cup.^[3] The Australia–New Zealand bid proposed that the tournament be held in February and March 1992, at the end of the local cricket season, while the India–Pakistan bid would have seen the tournament held in late 1991.^[4] The seven full members of the ICC were given two votes each in the ballot, while the 18 associate members were given one vote each.^[5] The results of the ballot were not released, but the winning bid reportedly enjoyed strong support from the ICC associate members.^[3]

The 1992 World Cup was the first to feature coloured player clothing, white cricket balls and black sight screens, with a number of matches being played under floodlights.^[6] It was also the first Cricket World Cup to be held in the Southern Hemisphere, and the first to include South Africa, who had been allowed to re-join the International Cricket Council as a Test-playing nation after the end of apartheid in 1990. For the first time, the World Cup was not held after a four-year gap, but after a five-year gap.^[7]

The format was changed from previous tournaments, with a complete round-robin replacing the former two qualifying groups. The initial draw was released with eight competing countries and 28 round-robin matches, plus two semi-finals and a final. In late 1991, South Africa were re-admitted to the International Cricket Council after 21 years of exclusion due to apartheid, and the draw was amended to include them, adding another eight matches to the round-robin.

The rule for calculating the target score for the team batting second in rain-affected matches was also changed. The previous rule (the Average Run Rate method) simply multiplied the run rate of the team batting first by the number of overs available to the team batting second, but this rule had been deemed to give an unfair advantage to the team batting second.

In an attempt to rectify this, the target score would now be calculated by the Most Productive Overs method. 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 seemed plausible, 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 runs off 7 (the least productive over, a maiden, being deducted) and finally, a preposterous 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. The farcical end to the semi-final led to the creation of the Duckworth-Lewis method.

The 1992 World Cup featured the seven Test teams at that time.

For the first time, South Africa competed as the eighth full member of the ICC, and would play their first Test in 22 years in the West Indies a month after the World Cup. Zimbabwe appeared for the third time, having qualified by winning the 1990 ICC Trophy defeating the Netherlands in the final for the second time. Zimbabwe would gain full member status following the tournament and play their first Test match later in 1992. Teams who entered were:^[8]

Full Members
Australia
England
India
New Zealand
Pakistan
South Africa
Sri Lanka
West Indies
Associate Member
Zimbabwe

Venue	City	State/territory	Number of matches	Matches
Adelaide Oval	Adelaide	South Australia	3	Round robin
Lavington Sports Oval	Albury	New South Wales	1	Round robin
Eastern Oval	Ballarat	Victoria	1	Round robin
Berri Oval	Berri	South Australia	1	Round robin
The Gabba	Brisbane	Queensland	3	Round robin
Manuka Oval	Canberra	Australian Capital Territory	1	Round robin
Bellerive Oval	Hobart	Tasmania	2	Round robin
Ray Mitchell Oval	Mackay	Queensland	1	Round robin
Melbourne Cricket Ground	Melbourne	Victoria	5	Round robin, Final
WACA Ground	Perth	Western Australia	3	Round robin
Sydney Cricket Ground	Sydney	New South Wales	4	Round robin, 2nd semi-final

Venue	City	Region	Number of matches	Matches
Eden Park	Auckland	Auckland	4	Round robin, 1st semi-final
Lancaster Park	Christchurch	Canterbury	2	Round robin
Carisbrook	Dunedin	Otago	1	Round robin
Seddon Park	Hamilton	Waikato	2	Round robin
McLean Park	Napier	Hawke's Bay	1	Round robin
Pukekura Park	New Plymouth	Taranaki	1	Round robin
Basin Reserve	Wellington	Wellington	3	Round robin

Eleven umpires were selected to officiate at the World Cup: two from each of the host nations, Australia and New Zealand, and one from each of the other participating nations.

West Indies' Steve Bucknor and England's David Shepherd were chosen as the umpires for the first semi-final,^[9] while New Zealand's Brian Aldridge and Australia's Steve Randell were chosen for the second.^[10] Bucknor and Aldridge were chosen for the final.^[11]

Umpire	Country	Matches
Steve Bucknor	West Indies	9
Brian Aldridge	New Zealand	9
David Shepherd	England	8
Steve Randell	Australia	8
Khizer Hayat	Pakistan	7
Piloo Reporter	India	7
Dooland Buultjens	Sri Lanka	6
Peter McConnell	Australia	6
Steve Woodward	New Zealand	6
Ian Robinson	Zimbabwe	6
Karl Liebenberg	South Africa	6

Two match referees were also selected to supervise the semi-finals and final. Australia's Peter Burge supervised the first semi-final and the final,^[9][11] while New Zealand's Frank Cameron supervised the second semi-final.^[10]

Referee	Country	Matches	1992 WC
Peter Burge	Australia	63	2
Frank Cameron	New Zealand	5	1

Co-hosts New Zealand proved the surprise package of the tournament, winning their first seven consecutive games to finish on top of the table after the round-robin. The other hosts, Australia, one of the pre-tournament favourites 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 Sydney Cricket Ground 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 were still establishing themselves 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 losses were to champions Pakistan, once in the group stage and the second in the semi-final.

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	L	T	NR	Pts	NRR
1	New Zealand	8	7	1	0	0	14	0.592
2	England	8	5	2	0	1	11	0.470
3	South Africa	8	5	3	0	0	10	0.138
4	Pakistan	8	4	3	0	1	9	0.166
5	Australia	8	4	4	0	0	8	0.201
6	West Indies	8	4	4	0	0	8	0.076
7	India	8	2	5	0	1	5	0.137
8	Sri Lanka	8	2	5	0	1	5	−0.686
9	Zimbabwe	8	1	7	0	0	2	−1.142

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In the first semi-final, Pakistan defeated tournament favourites New Zealand in a high-scoring match to win their first semi-final in four attempts and book a place in the World Cup Final for the first time. New Zealand batted first and scored 262. Their captain Martin Crowe was injured while scoring 91, and opted to let John Wright captain during Pakistan's innings rather than risk aggravating the injury, which was seen as a mistake in hindsight.^[14] When Inzamam-ul-Haq came in to bat, Pakistan still needed 123 from 15 overs.^[15] He smashed 60 runs in 37 balls in the chase to achieve the target with one over remaining and also won the Man of the Match award.

In the second semi-final between South Africa and England, the match ended in controversial circumstances when, after a 10-minute rain delay, the most productive overs method revised South Africa's target from 22 runs from 13 balls to an impossible 22 runs from one ball. This rule was replaced for One Day International matches in Australia after the World Cup as a result of this incident, and it was eventually superseded by the Duckworth–Lewis method for the 1999 World Cup onwards. According to the late Bill Frindall, had the Duckworth–Lewis method been applied at that rain interruption, the revised target would have been four runs to tie or five to win from the final ball.^[16] The Duckworth-Lewis method would also have changed the target earlier in the day, due to earlier rain interruptions.^[17]

	Semi-finals				Final
	21 March – Eden Park, Auckland, New Zealand
	New Zealand	262/7
					25 March – Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia
	Pakistan	264/6
					Pakistan	249/6
	22 March – Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, Australia
					England	227
	England	252/6
	South Africa	232/6

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In a thrilling final, Pakistan beat England by 22 runs at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). Derek Pringle took two early wickets for England before Imran Khan and Javed Miandad added 139 for the third wicket to steady the Pakistan innings – although both were very slow to score early on, and Imran benefited from a dropped catch just as he was trying to increase the tempo, having up to that point scored only 9 in 16 overs. He went on to score 72. At the 25 over mark, Pakistan had only scored 70, but accelerated the score to 139 by the 31st over as Javed Miandad summoned a runner, and he and Imran Khan built a steady partnership. During his innings, Imran hit a huge six off Richard Illingworth that landed far back into the members section. Imran played a captain's innings, getting a score of 72 and Miandad 58 to steady the innings, expectedly followed by an onslaught from Inzamam (42) and Wasim Akram (33) enabling Pakistan to give England a fighting target of 250.

England's start was shaky. Ian Botham was dismissed for a duck by Wasim Akram, followed by Alec Stewart, Hick and Gooch, which left England tumbling at 69/4. A solid partnership of 71 between Allan Lamb and Neil Fairbrother caused Imran to give an early second spell to his main pacer Wasim Akram in the 35th over. The decision wrote the fate of the match. Two deliveries from the left arm fast bowler dismissed Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis. Soon Fairbrother was caught by Moin Khan off Aaqib Javed to seal England's fate. Imran Khan had the final say, when he had Richard Illingworth caught by Ramiz Raja off his bowling to finish the final and crown Pakistan World Champions.

This also remains as the only World Cup Final to be played during the week, being played on a Wednesday.

• Martin Crowe^[1]

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 spin bowler Dipak Patel, rather than with a fast bowler, as is usual practice. Another innovation was the then-unorthodox ploy of opening the batting with "pinch hitters", such as New Zealand's Mark Greatbatch.^[13][18] These innovations reversed the immediate prior form of New Zealand who had lost 3–0 in their most recent series against England, with one commentator writing, "Without a host of world-class performers, New Zealand got crafty instead".^[19]

• Wisden Almanack Report
• List A Limited Overs Matches played in Australia Season 1992/93
• Imran's Tigers turn the corner

• Cricket World Cup 1992 from ESPNcricinfo