The shows and no-shows of 1996

Zimbabwe, who were also scheduled to play a game in Sri Lanka, had no such qualms. England player-turned-writer Vic Marks quoted their manager Denis Streak (father of late all-rounder Heath) in the Observer as saying, “We come from a country which knows about war, and we’re not going to worry about a few bombs. You could get run over by a bus in the street.” Eventual World Cup 1996 winners Sri Lanka were declared winners by default in both those games.

Presently, Pakistan’s decision not to play India in the group stage is viewed as support for Bangladesh. In 1996, there was no doubt about India and Pakistan’s support for Sri Lanka. A joint India and Pakistan XI, called the Wills XI, took on Sri Lanka in Colombo for an exhibition match on February 13.

The Wills XI, led by Mohammed Azharuddin, beat Sri Lanka by four wickets in a 40-over game at the Premadasa Stadium. An elated Azharuddin lifted the Wills Solidarity Cup. Sumit Mukherjee, writing in The Telegraph India, said the match proved “that only sportsmanship could conquer fear of terrorism” and that the “display of solidarity between the co-organisers of the Wills World Cup, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka came as a fitting rebuttal to Australian and West Indian fears of lack of security and touched the hearts of millions of cricket fans here.”

In 1996, the Asian bloc stood united against their so-called seniors in world cricket (West Indies followed England, Australia and South Africa in getting Test status). Today, Pakistan and Bangladesh are at loggerheads with India, but like in 1996, the game will go on as it were.

The build-up to the 1996 World Cup was an exciting one for a journalist like me, covering his first World Cup. I followed the teams that landed in Mumbai. The West Indians touched down here on the afternoon of February 8. I don’t remember them having a press conference or their players having anything to do with the media at the airport Centaur Hotel.

Their last ODI engagement was the tri-series in Australia, where they did not qualify for the final, contested between the hosts and Sri Lanka. The Zimbabwean and Kenyan teams tuned up for their World Cup at the Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers (RCF) ground at Chembur. Kenya and the Netherlands played a practice game at the Brabourne Stadium on February 5.

Both teams were well-oiled for the fixture; the Netherlands team training a few hours after landing in Mumbai on February 3. The Dutch were led by 43-year-old Steven Lubbers. He looked at players like Nolan Clarke, the 48-year-old Barbados cricketer, to help Netherlands give a good account of themselves. A few days later, I was fortunate to be present when Ian Chappell (on World Cup commentary duty) reunited with Clarke who he played against way back in 1973 in the Caribbean. Chappell remembered Clarke’s strokeplay in the Australians vs Barbados game in March 1973. “I’m still hitting them,” Clarke said with a chuckle.

If that was some reunion to remember, there was one between a pressman and cricketer. Rajan Bala, the veteran journalist who was at the Brabourne Stadium to watch the Dutch train, was delighted to meet their coach David Trist, who came to India as part of Graham Dowling’s New Zealand team in 1969-70. Unfortunately, both Trist and Bala are no longer with us.

Meanwhile, I asked Lubbers what he would like to achieve during the World Cup and he said with a smile: “We just want to play decent cricket without being disgraced.”

As one would expect, all three minnows in Mumbai were good-natured and gelled well with the media. One got access to the players and Zimbabwe’s late team manager Babu Memon even allowed a couple of press reporters to travel in their team bus from the RCF ground. I sat behind Andy Flower and his in-depth discussions with a teammate came back to me when I attended his media briefings as England’s Team Director in 2011, when India lost the Test series 0-4.

Kenya trained hard too and their players were not coy to reveal their humble beginnings. Steve Tikolo carved his own bats from logs of wood and he grew up idolising Viv Richards. Little that we realise in that pre-tournament phase that Tikolo’s top score of 29 would contribute to Kenya’s win over Richards’s fellow West Indians later that month in Pune.

The win in Pune added to their short list of achievements that included beating England ‘A’ and India ‘A’ not long before the 1996 World Cup. Derek Pringle, another former England all-rounder-tuned-journalist, took special interest in Kenya’s 1996 World Cup forays as he was born and brought up there and his late father Don played for Kenya (then known as East Africa).

Unfortunately, Pringle was not assigned to cover the Kenya vs West Indies game in Pune. Kenya and Zimbabwe won a game each during the 1996 World Cup and the Netherlands were not bowled out in any of their five games. Scotland, who have replaced Bangladesh in the T20 World Cup, can be a delight to watch too — and hopefully can contribute to dimming the spotlight on the current row.

mid-day’s Deputy Editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. 
He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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