Can Anyone Hear Me?

by Peter Baxter

  In the event, most of the talking was done by the chairman of the organising committee, Jagmohan Dalmiya, the volume of whose rant was sufficient that it did not matter that he was nowhere near a microphone. But the announcement was that neither Australia nor the West Indies would fulfil their fixtures in Sri Lanka.

  It would take something for the opening ceremony to be memorable after that, but it was.

  Sunday 11 February 1996

  It was an extravagant event, featuring a laser show, which didn’t quite work, because the curtains on which it was projected billowed in the wind. But the twelve teams were led out – and mis-identified by Saeed Jaffrey – and when it was all over they did the whole show again, this time with boy scouts holding down the curtains.

  Monday 12 February

  We left for the airport at 5.00 a.m., where our press party and five cricket teams were boarding the flight to Delhi – England, South Africa, UAE, New Zealand and Pakistan. It made one wonder why it had been necessary for us all to make the journey to Calcutta at all.

  The UAE team baggage got itself tagged for Amsterdam, but luckily someone spotted it as it was disappearing towards the international terminal.

  England and New Zealand were bound for Ahmedabad to play the first match of the Cup.

  Our broadcast circuits for commentary were to use the system we had tried in the Caribbean two years before, running a cable to the television control point to use a leg of their satellite transmission to London. While that still left the back-up circuitry sometimes unreliable, it should at least give us one clear and reliable line.

  Our New Zealand colleagues had decided that their best policy was to take our commentary from London and we included Bryan Waddle and Richard Hadlee in our team. They were delighted with the outcome of that – and of the match, because England fell eleven runs short, after seeming to have things in hand.

  So pleased were his masters back home, that Bryan Waddle found himself asked to do full commentary on the rest of New Zealand’s matches. Their next was in Baroda, where he could get no broadcast line and spent the whole day on the telephone at the back of the pavilion.

  Often on tour, to get a clean interview without holding the press conference up, it was our practice, supported by the team management, to sit beside the captain, manager or whichever player was selected, and start off the questioning. This was the case after the defeat in Ahmedabad.

  Wednesday 14 February

  All was chaos in front of the dressing room, but I saw Mike Atherton being escorted towards the stairs. I asked him what he was going to do and he said, ‘I’ve no idea, Bartex!’ So he was in quite good form when I led off the press conference in an office upstairs.

  Apparently, though, this was not the thing to do, as an Indian official approached me afterwards to say, ‘You are very naughty man.’

  England – and we camp followers – had a tortuous journey now to Peshawar, via Delhi and Karachi.

  Friday 16 February

  We arrived long after dark and I was reminded of the wild west feel of the place, with guns everywhere, including a truck-mounted machine gun trained on us as we walked across the tarmac.

  The baggage hall was a shambles. Turbaned tribesmen surrounded the small, dilapidated conveyor belt four deep and after a bit it became clear that nothing was going to happen, because the team’s cricket coffins were going round and round with no room for any more luggage to be added.

  So some of us nudged through the tribesmen, to break the stalemate by unloading the coffins and stacking them in a pile.

  Next came the tribesmen’s bundles, each one more enormous than the last. We managed to strike up some banter with these fearsome characters despite the language problem, as we applauded the most outrageous bundles off the belt.

  At last, after an hour, came our own luggage.

  England were in Peshawar for a week, to play the United Arab Emirates and Holland, the only two games they were to win. In between the two matches, while Aggers stayed on England watch, I went to Faisalabad to report on South Africa vs. New Zealand.

  We joined forces with the SABC commentary team in Rawalpindi for England’s game against South Africa, who still had the edge acquired in their home series ended barely a month before.

  Next day I was off to Lahore to see Pakistan play Holland. In something of a hurry to get to the ground, I was waiting with the other passengers for the luggage to emerge in Lahore’s then fairly ramshackle airport. As my frustration increased at the delay, I was muttering, ‘This lot couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.’

  A helpful porter, overhearing me, offered, ‘You want toilet?’

  Next day a terrifying drive through thick fog took me back to Faisalabad for New Zealand against the UAE. Poking my head round Radio New Zealand’s door at the ground, I found a desperate Bryan Waddle, who had been commentating solo for a couple of hours. With, ‘Now it’s time to hand over to Peter Baxter,’ he threw the microphone at me and disappeared for a breather.

  Sub-continental travel has its own mystique and this tournament’s planning required a sit down with the travel agent to work out a plan as soon as we knew who was going to which quarter-final. Happily for us, England’s poor form in only being able to beat Holland and the UAE, meant that we got relatively early notice that they would be in Faisalabad as the bottom qualifier in their group. That affected the semi-final schedule, too. The winner in Faisalabad would go to Calcutta.

  We were committed to full commentaries on both semi-finals and, of course, the final in Lahore, so I had to have a hard look at the practicalities. The timing made it all but impossible for anyone other than VIPs with private planes to attend both semis, so I decided that Aggers and Simon Mann had better go to Calcutta in case England got through. I had been there for the opening ceremony, so I could give Aggers the lie of the land. I would go to the second match in Chandigarh.

  Sri Lanka had taken everyone by surprise with their style of play in the tournament. They had, of course, been gifted two wins by Australia and the West Indies both refusing to play them in Sri Lanka, but their batting assault to beat India in Delhi had made everyone sit up and take notice. Now, after topping their group, they were England’s quarter-final opponents.

  England were by now an unsettled team. The captain, Mike Atherton, and the manager, Ray Illingworth, did not seem to be on the same wavelength at all.

  They might not have had the best of the luck, either. Our rooftop commentary position was separated from the third umpire by a sheet of canvas, but we could see the red and green buttons for indicating the ruling on line decisions perched on the wall in front of him. When he reviewed Robin Smith’s run out, the television replay showed that there was ample doubt and the decision should be not out. So we watched in fascination as the tentative hand crept forward – hesitated – and then hit the red button to fire Smith out.

  England’s 235 was made to look very slender anyway, when Sanath Jayasuriya got to work, blasting sixes into the pavilion below us. On the drive back to Lahore, after the comfortable Sri Lankan victory, we listened to commentary – sometimes having to get the driver to translate from Urdu – on India vs. Pakistan in Bangalore. The streets of Lahore were empty when we got there, as every man, woman and child was glued to the floodlit match. But Pakistan were going down.

  The next morning I was off to Karachi for the West Indies vs. South Africa quarter-final.

  Sunday 10 March

  As I checked out of the hotel, the manager took the opportunity to tell me how terrible the defeat by India last night had been. It seemed that the whole country was in mourning. I was told that Wasim Akram should have played, despite his injury, and that the team had quite obviously taken bribes. And plenty more.

  The West Indies had had a chequered week before the quarter-final, losing to Kenya and then beating Australia, but South Afr
ica were certainly favourites here – and absolutely stunned when they lost. My interview with Hansie Cronje at the end confirmed that.

  Now I had to get to Chandigarh. That entailed a 4.00 a.m. departure to fly to Bombay. Then, because you could not get an Indian domestic ticket in Pakistan, I had to go to the travel agent’s office an hour and a quarter away by car and wait for them to find it. The plan was then for me to fly to Delhi and catch the train from there to Chandigarh.

  This was where I had earlier spotted a flaw in the plans. My plane was due into Delhi half an hour before the train left and I knew that it takes a good deal longer than half an hour to get from the airport to the main railway station, even if your luggage is first off the aircraft. At my pointing this out, the travel agent had displayed characteristically unreasonable optimism.

  The driver who met me off the flight, which had been only ten minutes overdue, moaned sadly, ‘You are late.’ I told him that I had not been flying the plane myself.

  Tuesday 12 March

  He took me to their office in the city, which, for a large organisation, seemed an amazingly scruffy hole.

  The agent himself, who I had last seen in Calcutta was, like the driver, astonished that I hadn’t caught the train. ‘Mr Mark (Nicholas) would not go on it either. Someone had been sick on his seat.’ He thought Mark’s reluctance extraordinary. ‘Do you want car?’ he asked.

  I said that I thought that was the back-up plan, so he summoned one, which turned up in a mere two hours.

  The Grand Trunk Road in the dark was a scary experience, with a lot of traffic, much of it unlit and on the wrong side of the road. It took nearly seven hours to get to Chandigarh and the Hotel Aroma. There the man at the desk denied all knowledge of me, but I spotted my name on a list on the wall behind him.

  He was unapologetic. ‘You have been moved to the Hotel Metro 35.’

  The Aroma wasn’t great. And the Metro 35 is not as good as that, with a bed harder than the floor.

  The semi-final here was to be Australia vs. the West Indies, which meant that I could join forces with Jim Maxwell of the ABC, but first, as I was setting up the commentary booth on the afternoon before our game, I was keeping an eye on Sri Lankan wickets falling to India in Calcutta. That night at Jim’s rather more comfortable hotel we watched that fortune change dramatically. Sri Lanka had recovered from a poor start to make 251 for eight and then none of the Indians had been able to stay with Tendulkar.

  Wednesday 13 March

  When they were eight wickets down and certain of defeat, the crowd started throwing bottles onto the ground and Clive Lloyd, the match referee, advised the umpires to take them off. They did come back after a quarter of an hour, but the trouble started again, so Lloyd awarded the match to Sri Lanka.

  We may have been horrified at a major cricket match having such an outcome, but much worse horror was in the news coming from home that day. Sixteen small children and a teacher had been massacred by a gunman at a place called Dunblane in Scotland. Sometimes something happens to make our lives covering sport seem very trivial.

  We still had a match to cover next day, though, under the lights – low lights because of its proximity to the airport – of a new ground in the Chandigarh suburb of Mohali. Australia slumped to fifteen for four at the start, so that 207 for eight in their 50 overs represented a recovery.

  Nonetheless the West Indies seemed in no trouble until panic unaccountably set in in the last ten overs and they were all out with five runs and three balls to go. Australia would play Sri Lanka in the final in Lahore. But first we had to get there.

  Friday 15 March

  There was a fog of rumour and uncertainty surrounding everyone’s travel plans, which in my case were meant to be being handled by my elusive travel agent, Rajesh. The rumours were of a charter flight – or maybe even two – direct to Lahore. But I was apprehensive that the needs of players, officials, ICC guests and even television crew and twenty Australian journalists would come ahead of those of a solitary BBC man in the scramble for seats.

  I checked out of the Metro 35 to move to the team hotel, where everyone else was based. As I had had to pay cash for every phone call I had made from the hotel as soon as I had made it, I was low on Indian rupees to pay the bill. The man at the desk was not keen on travellers’ cheques or credit cards. ‘You must change travellers cheques at bank,’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  ‘Bank is closed,’ he told me.

  So we were back to his original options. He reluctantly went for the credit card. I signed the slip and he examined the signature against the one on the back of the card. Then he took out a ruler from his drawer and measured the two.

  ‘Is not the same,’ he said.

  ‘Have you ever tried to sign in the space on the back of those cards?’ I asked him. Eventually he realised that he had no choice.

  The Shivalik View Hotel was chaos. There was a desk in the foyer where people seemed to be handing over huge wodges of rupees. People were either setting off for Delhi or looking for air tickets. What was definitely missing was my man, Rajesh. I wasn’t sure if I should be paying someone or waiting for him.

  Twice I was referred to ‘Room 209’ where I found members of the Indian cricket board handling large bundles of rupees. I was roundly abused when I asked for guidance there.

  The first planeload – largely made up of Indian officials – left in the early afternoon and rumours mounted that there would indeed be a later flight, when the aircraft had been to Lahore and returned.

  There was a melee inside the airport, when I eventually decided to go there. All sorts of ICC dignitaries, a few with wives, were milling around, none with any idea of what was going on. The Australian journalists had come along, too.

  At last a voice started shouting out names to hand out tickets and I saw that it was Rajesh, who I had been looking for all day. He was standing on a crate to deliver the bounty. There was a pathetic anxiety amongst everyone to hear their names called. I was certainly grateful and amazed when I heard mine.

  As Chandigarh is not an international airport, this was a big day for the staff and it was clear they were going for glory. My passport number was written in ledgers at three different desks and the security and customs checks were more thorough than ever.

  There was a long wait in the bleak departure lounge and then a further hold up when the doors were at last opened because, the security guard told me, ‘Some important people have to get on plane first.’

  I passed that news to the President of the MCC and the chairmen of the Australian and West Indies boards, who were just behind me. On boarding the plane, there, sitting in seat 1A, was Sunil Gavaskar, grinning all over his face.

  I had stayed in the Lahore hotel many times over the previous six weeks, observing the progress of building works on a huge new wing, which, I was told, would be full for the final. I never believed that it could be finished in time, which would leave a lot of people without accommodation. Arriving on the second plane seemed a little dangerous.

  I had repeatedly underlined with the hotel on my last visit that I would be there and they had confirmed it, getting to know me quite well anyway, after my many visits. What I did not know as I headed westwards from Chandigarh was that Jonathan Agnew had also been warning them all day that I was coming in.

  My heart sank as I looked at a noisy crowd of frustrated people, five deep round the reception desk. But my talks with the staff had worked and from behind the throng I was hailed, ‘Mr Peter! Here is your key.’ And it was passed to me over the envious crowd.

  Such mayhem inevitably led on to a chaotic final, with many of these same dignitaries finding that, when they went off to get some interval refreshment, on their return, their seats had been occupied by people with apparently perfectly genuine tickets.

  Despite Sri Lanka’s unbeaten run, A
ustralia were made favourites for the Lahore final.

  It was to be the first game under lights at the Gadaffi Stadium and I had watched the slow progress of the erection of the floodlight towers on every visit I had made to Lahore, thinking all the while that they would never have them ready in time. It was said on the night that a good section of Lahore had to be blacked out to keep them going.

  In the commentary box we were joined by Michael Slater, omitted from the Australian playing eleven and therefore given the chance to continue the early steps in a broadcasting career, which has since blossomed on Channel Nine television. His side – and probably the cricketing world – were taken by surprise by the outcome, as Sri Lanka took that world by storm.

  Sunday 17 March

  Despite the overnight thunderstorm, the match started on time. We had a commentary team of Aggers, CMJ, Maxwell and me, with summaries from Mike Selvey and Peter Roebuck and contributions during the day from Michael Slater, up from the Australian dressing room, Lucien Wijesinghe, our old friend from Sri Lanka and the Australian journalist, Mike Coward.

  Sri Lanka caused some surprise by putting Australia in, but they bowled and fielded well to keep them down to 241 for seven, with Mark Taylor making 74 and Ponting 45. Bevan was 36 not out at the end.

  The two dangerous openers, Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana, again went early, but the partnership of Gurusinha and Aravinda de Silva just seemed to make the outcome appear a foregone conclusion, pacing themselves more carefully than in previous games. When Gurusinha was out, Ranatunga played himself in without panic, seeing Aravinda to his century and Sri Lanka to the World Cup and a coming of age.