South Africa's 1992 World Cup campaign & Big Mac's claim

[Jeremiel]

Brian McMillan interview:

"I promise you," McMillan says. "If we had played Pakistan in the final, we would have beaten them. We had beaten them before that, we had a mental edge. They just couldn't play us."

Source : Brian McMillan interview: 'Always had the thing for a difficult catch, the dive' | Specials | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

I would say that regarding his claim that they would have defeated Pakistan, they had beaten Pakistan in the league game by virtue of the same "rain rule" that resulted in the farce in the semi final otherwise Pakistan were cruising along. Kepler Wessels himself admitted that the overs reduction had helped his side.

 

[Neil Pickup]

More revisionist romanticism of SA being "robbed". They played the rules themselves by slowing down England's innings so that the final "slog overs" could not be bowled. Live by the rulebook, die by the rulebook.

If you want to talk miscarriage of justice, the fact that Pakistan made the knockout stage at all after the rain saved them against England in the group stages is where to start...

 

[vcs]

Off topic, but India were robbed by the rain rule against Australia in that WC as well...

 

[smash84]

More revisionist romanticism of SA being "robbed". They played the rules themselves by slowing down England's innings so that the final "slog overs" could not be bowled. Live by the rulebook, die by the rulebook.

If you want to talk miscarriage of justice, the fact that Pakistan made the knockout stage at all after the rain saved them against England in the group stages is where to start...

yes i recently found out about that and thought it was quite a shame that SA used such tactics. They shouldn't cry over the "rain rule".

And yes SA won the group match b/c of the rain rule too. So I guess it was poetic justice.

 

[Dissector]

What's McMillan's basis for saying that "they just couldn't play us" ? Was it just the league game or were there earlier games between the two teams? Anyway the whole thing just comes across as some rather pathetic whining.

 

[Migara]

Pakistan was on a role at the latter games of WC 1992 starting from the do or die group game with NZ. SAF was good, but would have got decimated against that mean machine in action. When Pakistan is on a role there's nothing (except them) could stop them. Mushtaq was in hot form, and would have done some serious damage too.

 

[marc71178]

Off topic, but India were robbed by the rain rule against Australia in that WC as well...

More like robbed by their inability to get 5 runs off 4 balls with 3 wickets remaining TBH.

 

[vcs]

More like robbed by their inability to get 5 runs off 4 balls with 3 wickets remaining TBH.

I was 10 years old and it broke my heart..

 

[Cevno]

More like robbed by their inability to get 5 runs off 4 balls with 3 wickets remaining TBH.

True ,but they required if i am not wrong 13 off the final over when they should have required 13 off 24 balls and 5 runs as a result out of 22 balls.

That was a real stupid rule back then.

Seeing back the results the whole World cup was badly marred by it.

 

[marc71178]

Looking at the game, I doubt D/L would've actually changed the target that much, and India had plenty of notice that the target was going to be higher.

The only time that rain thing really caused issues was when it happened late in the game, teams didn't then have the time to adjust - such as when Zimbabwe's innings was halted when they were well on the way to chase down the India score of 203.

 

[turnstyle]

Quite funny reading all these posts about how teams were robbed of the wc in '92, yet it's pretty much consensus that this was the glorious format that gave each of the top test playing nations 50 billion opportunities to win it.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Quite funny reading all these posts about how teams were robbed of the wc in '92, yet it's pretty much consensus that this was the glorious format that gave each of the top test playing nations 50 billion opportunities to win it.

Those opportunities were also snatched away by the billion every rain interruption.

 

[turnstyle]

Those opportunities were also snatched away by the billion every rain interruption.

8 group matches though. C'mooon, even with rain surely THAT'S enough?

 

[smash84]

8 group matches though. C'mooon, even with rain surely THAT'S enough?

I have to admit though except for that stupid rain rule the 92 wc did have the most fair format of all world cups.

 

[Top_Cat]

More revisionist romanticism of SA being "robbed". They played the rules themselves by slowing down England's innings so that the final "slog overs" could not be bowled. Live by the rulebook, die by the rulebook.

Yes.

If you want to talk miscarriage of justice, the fact that Pakistan made the knockout stage at all after the rain saved them against England in the group stages is where to start...

haha, no. Incredibly bad luck for England though. Pretty sure if Pakistan had lost the Adelaide game (which after totalling 74, was pretty likely), they were done for the tournament.

Mind you, would have been fun watching Wasim and Aaqib on that deck.....

True ,but they required if i am not wrong 13 off the final over when they should have required 13 off 24 balls and 5 runs as a result out of 22 balls

You can't do that. It's the whole sliding doors thing, both India and Australia would have batted and bowled differently if the target was different. Without scoreboard pressure, maybe both Azhar and Manjrekar wouldn't have felt free enough to start finally playing their shots after their horrific run in the away summer against Australia. Maybe Sachin would have just played his natural game instead of a slog and got India home with 10 overs to spare.

India were disadvantaged and the rule was ****, though, no doubt.

MacMillan engaging in some revisionism here. As has been said, the rain rule definitely put the squeeze on Pakistan in their match against South Africa. Mind you, South Africa's attack was strong and Pakistan had a few out-of-form batters at the time so even without the rain, it would have been a close match.

 

[marc71178]

India were disadvantaged and the rule was ****, though, no doubt.

I wouldn't be so sure - someone (and by someone I mean Neil) should put that game's figures into D/L and see what it comes up with.

 

[Top_Cat]

The only rain interruption was in the 17th over when India were 1/40.

If I punched in the numbers right (not sure, the online calculator is pretty unwieldly), India's revised total was 228 off 47 or 8 runs less.

 

[_Ed_]

"If we had played Pakistan in the final, we would have beaten them. We had beaten them before that, we had a mental edge. They just couldn't play us."

I don't agree with this logic at all.

Look at the '99 World Cup, for example - Pakistan beat Australia quite impressively in the group stages. That didn't really help them in the final, did it?

 

[Top_Cat]

Yep. Australia had a massively good run after early losses in '99 with several players hitting their straps (McG, S Waugh, Bevan). Pakistan in '92 had something similar happen as Imran and Inzi started smacking them with Wasim and Mushie started to really hit their stride with the ball after a fairly average start.

The Saffie batting was very strong and maintained their form throughout the tournament so, as I said, the final would probably have been close between Pakistan and South Africa.

 

[TT Boy]

Unless I’m mistaken, South Africa never played Pak (ever) before the 1992 WC. So not sure what mental edge they held over them…