Can Anyone Hear Me?

by Peter Baxter

  Pakistan had won again in Karachi, leaving England needing to win both their remaining group matches to progress. That was their task. Mine was to find another commentator to replace Lewis and Bannister.

  Tim Rice was travelling with us as what he called a ‘cricket groupie’ and so I asked him if he’d like to try his hand at commentary for England’s next game in Jaipur. I had woken him with my phone call, so when I saw him as we were setting off to return to India, he asked, ‘Was that a dream, Backers, or did you ask me to join the commentary team?’

  At that point in the tournament, all roads seemed to cross in Delhi.

  Friday 23 October

  I met Henry Blofeld and Trevor Bailey in the hotel and we were able to exchange tales and discuss their future plans.

  It has been a pleasant crossroads, with the same hotel housing for 24 hours England, the West Indies, India, Australia and Sri Lanka, before we all separate again. I also came across the two English umpires, David Shepherd and Dickie Bird, who have been operating in the other group. Shep reports that Dickie’s really happy now he’s feeling properly ill!

  And so to Jaipur and the first of England’s must-win games – against the West Indies. We had found ourselves at the opposite end of the ground from the television boxes, so the shared commentary arrangement would have been doomed anyway.

  Monday 26 October

  It was a big day for Tim Rice and, if he wasn’t perhaps quite as nervous as for a big first night, there can’t have been much in it. He need not have worried. He did splendidly and had a good match to start on.

  England survived a torrid opening hour on a lively pitch to make 269 for five, but we were a little afraid that that wasn’t enough.

  When Richards and Richardson were in full cry, it certainly didn’t look enough, but, not for the first time in this competition, scoreboard pressure told and they were all out 34 runs short.

  In Pune four days later, England made sure of their semi-final place by beating Sri Lanka comfortably and Tim Rice made the acquaintance of some long Sri Lankan names. He eventually decided that Vinothen John, ‘the burly John’, was going to be credited with a lot of the fielding, whether he did it or not.

  The semi-finals had been resolved as Pakistan vs. Australia in Lahore and India vs. England in Bombay. The locals in both countries and the organisers now knew for certain that the cup had resolved itself as intended to provide an India–Pakistan final in Calcutta.

  There was, therefore, stunned reaction first when Australia won in Lahore and then when England did the same the following day in Bombay. In fact, so disappointed were the organisers with the final line-up, that a play-off match between India and Pakistan was discussed, but eventually rejected. And the day after the second semi-final we were off to Calcutta, a thousand miles to the east.

  Friday 6 November

  ‘Interview anything that moves,’ was our instruction from London, as the home audience was apparently becoming enthused by England’s success. So, CMJ recorded Micky Stewart, John Emburey and Phil DeFreitas, while I talked to Dickie Bird, who was distraught that he was now going to miss umpiring in a fourth World Cup Final, because England were in it.

  England may well have gone into the match as slight favourites, too, but the pressure of requiring the largest second innings total to win for that tournament proved too much. That Calcutta final of 1987 is remembered mainly for Mike Gatting’s reverse sweep, which cost him his wicket and checked England’s progress just when the match seemed to be in hand. It was the turning point that led to an Australian win.

  Four and a half years later Australia were defending their title on their own soil, sharing the tournament with New Zealand. They had just tacked the tournament onto the end of their normal season, which did not do them any favours.

  A number of other things were different. The matches up to the semi-finals, instead of being divided into two groups, would be played as a round-robin, each team playing all the others. There were nine countries involved, because South Africa had just re-entered the international fold. For the first time, coloured clothing would be used. And then there was the rain rule, which, with the tournament being played so late in the Australasian season, could become very important.

  Until that time, the system for re-calculating targets in rain-affected one-day matches had always just been a simple run-rate equation. That could obviously favour a side batting second that had not lost too many wickets. A revised sprint was usually a lot easier. Australia had suffered defeat in such circumstances not long before and therefore set about creating a new system.

  Richie Benaud is credited with coming up with the plan, which set the overs available only against the highest scoring overs of their opposition. Therefore, if you had bowled five maiden overs and your reply was docked five overs by the weather, your target did not change. Until we saw it in practice, we did not really notice any possible iniquity in this.

  For listeners in the UK, there were thirteen different sets of playing times, with the different time zones in Australia and New Zealand, the fact that for the first time there would be floodlit games, and with New Zealand and some of the Australian states changing their clocks to winter time during the course of the four and a half weeks of the competition. A further problem they would face during the tournament would be the switching off of Radio 3’s AM frequency, our old home network.

  After touching base with Jonathan Agnew, who had come on from New Zealand – his first tour as BBC correspondent – in Sydney, I headed east to Auckland for the opening match between the host countries, while he went west to Perth for England’s opening game against India. The matches were on the same day, but with the Auckland game in daylight and the Perth one under lights, coupled with the vast distance between them, they barely overlapped.

  Saturday 22 February 1992

  I was at Eden Park in good time for the start of the opening ceremony. After seeing yesterday’s chaotic rehearsal, I didn’t want to miss it. There was a fly-past of vintage aircraft and then a procession of army lorries came on, each decked out as a float representing one of the countries.

  It seemed that they had wanted to have an ex-player from each country on the float, but they appeared only to have approached whoever they could get hold of on the day. So India and Pakistan led off with no representatives, other than two girls on each float in the relevant cricket uniforms.

  For England, ironically, it was Tony Greig, for Australia (who were given a loud boo) Richie Benaud and for South Africa (who received a rousing cheer) Clive Rice. All three men, by chance, were part of the Channel Nine television commentary team. They were also using Richard Hadlee, who followed the whole parade in a vintage Rolls-Royce, holding the trophy – a large glass ball on a stalk.

  From that point, doing regular phone reports, I watched quite an upset as New Zealand won against all predictions, and from commentating on the end of that I handed on to Aggers in Perth, where England went on to beat India.

  South Africa’s first-ever World Cup match was clearly going to be a big event. Australia had saved that plum for themselves – at the Sydney Cricket Ground. I was part of the ABC’s commentary team, describing a nine-wicket win for the newcomers. The next day I was in Melbourne for England’s win over the West Indies and the day after that in Brisbane, ready for two back-to-back games.

  The second of those was Australia vs. India, which was being played at the same time as England were meeting Pakistan in Adelaide. For the telephone reports at this time we were using a piece of kit called a Reportophone, which plugged into an ordinary phone line.

  Sunday 1 March

  At the Gabba I rigged up my telephone line to the scaffolding platform on the roof, which we had used for Test Match Special ten years ago. We were to make good use of it.

  I did the occasional update into the commentary on England’s game in Adelaide. They
seemed to be going well, with Pakistan bowled out for 74, but then it rained there and so, with help from Tony Lewis, I had to start commentary on our game.

  After an hour, when India were preparing to chase 238, it rained on us, too. When our game resumed, so did our commentary, but it soon became clear that water had got into the Reportophone, which gave out increasingly loud and frequent crackles and then went to mush. Happily, soon after that, they resumed in Adelaide.

  One of the television engineers operating near me said that his mate was an expert on bits of equipment like this. So I showed the man the Reportophone.

  ‘Water in it?’ he said.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Then it’s buggered.’

  In fact that night I restored it to working order with the hotel hair dryer.

  Both the matches that day provided examples of the vagaries of the new rain rule. In Adelaide, after dismissing Pakistan in 41 overs for 74, England’s target was revised to 64 from sixteen overs, while that rain in Brisbane cost India three fewer overs to get two fewer runs. They lost by one run, while the England chase was eventually washed out by more rain.

  During the course of that tournament I made four separate trips from Australia to New Zealand and back, dispelling any notion that the Tasman Sea is just a narrow channel between the two. The next one of these journeys was to see an historic occasion, the first time South Africa and the West Indies had ever met on a cricket field. Both sides tried naturally to play down the political significance of the moment.

  Thursday 5 March

  There were a lot of fairly tense-looking South Africans at breakfast in the hotel and outside the ground there were no more than a handful of quiet protesters. But inside all was happy at the thought that these two were able to play against each other.

  Billed as a clash of the fast bowlers, it was South Africa’s Meyrick Pringle who came out on top.

  I was reunited with England, who were top of the table along with New Zealand at this stage, in Ballarat in Victoria for the game against Sri Lanka.

  Monday 9 March

  On a hot, sunny morning, Aggers and I set off early for the ground to establish our commentary position in what looked like an old railway signal box. In its confined space were the official scorers, the public address man and a reporter from Associated Press. That didn’t make it any cooler in a stifling box.

  I had recruited the ABC’s Peter Booth to join our team. He is originally from Ballarat and so provided some very interesting background stuff.

  The ground was packed with 13,000, many of whom had made the journey from Melbourne in the early morning on the train, and most of those were Sri Lankan. It was a noisy, enthusiastic, banner-waving crowd – partisan for the most part, but seeded with a few curious Australians. It was entirely good-humoured.England won by a huge margin, but the bad news came from a hamstring injury to Graham Gooch. So the scrum-like press conference after the game centred on that news.

  That injury to Gooch meant that Alec Stewart captained England in their next two matches. Against South Africa in a tense game on a hot night in Melbourne, the task was not made any easier by the rain docking them nine overs but the new rule taking only eleven runs off their target. I watched that from the comfort of the New Zealand commentator Iain Gallaway’s house in Dunedin, after an exceptionally cold day watching New Zealand beat India at Carisbrook.

  I was on England watch for their next game in Wellington, though. Having just enjoyed a successful tour of New Zealand, England found their hosts very keen indeed to redress the balance.

  Sunday 15 March

  I was part of the Radio New Zealand commentary team, with my telephone for reports conveniently situated right outside the box.

  Unfortunately, injuries were obviously taking their toll on England and dictated the selection of a team in which by no means everybody was fit. The total they put together of 200 was mercilessly overhauled by New Zealand, thanks to Jones and Crowe. And, although the result meant little in the context of the World Cup, as the two sides would finish first and second anyway, there was a tremendous feeling of revenge in the air – not least in the commentary box.

  The final day of the round-robin stage was important principally to determine the fourth semi-finalist, but it turned out to be quite dramatic.

  England had a game against Zimbabwe, who had lost all seven previous matches, at Albury-Wodonga, on the Victoria/New South Wales border. Pakistan had improved a little on a poor start to the tournament and now could sneak into the semi-finals in the unlikely event that they beat the previously unbeaten New Zealanders in Christchurch and that Australia, who had had a wretched time, could beat the West Indies, the other contenders for a place. Australia had a chance if they and New Zealand both won.

  The Australia–West Indies match was under the lights in Melbourne, where I was. Aggers and CMJ were doing commentary on the England game, while our day’s reporting was started by Henry Blofeld in Christchurch.

  First Pakistan did indeed sweep New Zealand aside and, while my game at the MCG was starting, England collapsed against Zimbabwe, thanks to the medium pace of Eddo Brandes. Although Australia were now out of it, I found myself busy with reports as they beat the West Indies and thereby put Pakistan – remarkably – into the semi-finals.

  For the first of these I was back in Auckland.

  Saturday 21 March

  The Radio New Zealand commentary team, which I was part of, for most of the day had no doubts that New Zealand would easily dispose of Pakistan. And, with a total of 262, it did look likely. I was lucky enough to be commentating for quite a bit of Inzamam’s innings of 60 from 37 balls, but the rest of the commentary box had gone very quiet. He had pulled the innings round and put Pakistan into a winning position. It was difficult after Pakistan’s victory to do objective reports on the day with Bryan Waddle and Alan Richards looking stunned and suicidal.

  The final stages of the second semi-final are what most people remember about the 1992 World Cup.

  I started the day heading for Auckland airport at 5.30 in the morning and finished it late at night, on my knees, trying to record a chaotic press conference in the Sydney Cricket Ground pavilion.

  Plenty of sympathy has always gone to South Africa about this game, but their tactic in the field had been to slow the over-rate, after they had put England in on a day with a poor forecast for the evening and England only received 45 overs in the allotted time, from which they made 252 for six.

  Sunday 22 March

  Sadly the day finished in utter farce. South Africa, with six wickets down, needed 22 off thirteen balls when the rain came down and the players went off. They were back within a quarter of an hour, but the crazy rain rule here meant that, to finish within the statutory playing times, there could only be one more ball bowled. England had lost their two most unproductive overs and South Africa had one ball to score 21 runs.

  At the press conference in the Members’ Dining Room, I scrabbled round on hands and knees putting out microphones in what I hoped would be the right places for Graham Halbish, the chairman of the organising committee, Graham Gooch and Kepler Wessels.

  The conference was packed and the bar next to it was open to the room, so that the noise from it became impossible and the curious drinkers kept wandering in and adding their opinions.

  My abiding memories of the final, which, after Pakistan had enjoyed most of the luck in setting England 250 to win, became rather one-sided, are of the newly opened Great Southern Stand at the MCG, packed and towering into the night sky and then of interviewing a victorious Imran Khan, resplendent in his tiger T-shirt.

  I was also grateful that, when I was commentating as the final catch went up off Richard Illingworth’s bat, it was the easily identifiable Ramiz Raja who was under it. England’s best chance of winning the World Cup had gone.

  Probably
no World Cup since has been as good, partly because they now all take too long to play.

  I was in Calcutta in 1993, when news came through of a particularly acrimonious ICC meeting at Lord’s at which the Asian countries exercised their muscle to insist on staging the next World Cup in 1996, previously agreed to be in England, in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka instead. More politics was to attend the start of that competition. On the cricketing side a new strategy was to prove very successful and this was an expanded World Cup – twelve teams – and the first involving quarter-finals.

  Perhaps mundanely, but crucially, for me it was the first time I had had a mobile phone in the sub-continent, which made a huge difference.

  England had not been to Pakistan since the antagonistic events of the Gatting–Shakoor Rana confrontation eight years before. This time they did their acclimatisation in Lahore, where they were extremely hospitably looked after. The diplomatic trouble that was waiting in Calcutta in the run-up to the opening ceremony did not really involve them.

  On the last day of January that year – six weeks before the start of the tournament – a bomb had gone off in Colombo, killing 100 people. Australia and the West Indies were both due to play in Sri Lanka and both refused to go.

  Enormous efforts were made to persuade particularly the Australians to change their minds. (The England delegation reported something like annoyance that recriminations could not be laid at the door of the old colonial power, as they were not scheduled to go to Sri Lanka.) Conversations I had with members of the Australian board revealed extraordinary lengths being gone to get them to change their minds. At lunchtime on the day of the opening ceremony, I went to a press conference at the Taj Bengal hotel, where I was told I would only need to put out one microphone for the ICC Chairman, Clyde Walcott.