Test Match Special - The World Cup Years: 1999

Episode Date: May 21, 2019

Kevin Howells and Andy Zaltzman complete their look back on the four Cricket World Cups to have been held in the UK.Alec Stewart, Gus Fraser and John Etheridge join Kevin and Andy to look back on a tournament perhaps best remembered for the fact that England were out before the official song (recorded by Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics).

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Bring more gear, carry more passengers, face greater challenges. Welcome to the world of Defender, with seating up to eight, ample cargo space and legendary off-road capability. It's built to make the most of every adventure. Learn more at landrover.ca. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. This is the TMS Podcast. from BBC Radio 5 Live. Dave Stewart, now, let's be honest about it when it comes to music.

The sun is up, the sky is red, no grey clouds inside your head. Dave Stewart, now let's be honest about it, Dave Stewart, he knows what he's doing when it comes to music. We all love the euryphics, especially if we were there at the time. But that's the official Cricket World Cup song of 1999, released the day.

after England already had been eliminated from the competition. Oh dear. Alex Stewart and Gus Fraser of England up on their feet, dancing along and pleased to see that. Leading them all is Andy Zaltzman. Andy? Hello. Tears in your eyes almost, it seems.

It's a sheer enjoyment of that song. It's glorious as everything that cricket is about, particularly the red skies. Indeed, and John Etheridge, a man who knows his pop music, John, would you like to give your marks out of ten for that one? Right, I remember the video of that song. It was a take-on. one for over the cuckoo's nest.

And I think the message was clear that you have to be a bit mad to like cricket. It was a strange old event, wasn't it? We had the first three in this country, and then the last one of that run being 1983, a long wait then, up until 1999. And to say that some of the things didn't go exactly to plan would be something of an understatement. We've already mentioned John there,

John, a cricket correspondent of the sun. Wisden recalls John writing of the time, let's get things fully in proportion. This was only the most catastrophic day ever for English cricket. Now, John, that's pretty strong stuff. I reckon if you tweeted, if you tweeted that now, John, I reckon that would certainly be serious clickbait. I think it could even go viral around the world.

I always remember John saying something about something wrote in the first test match of a series that you should always keep your powder a little bit dry for later on. You haven't kept much dry there There's been a few contenders For the worst day ever But I mean the point was That it was a home World Cup

There wasn't going to be another World Cup For 20 years Which is now Been now 20 years later And you know This was a chance for England To sped the word Sped the message about

What a wonderful game cricket is Attract young people to the game And they were knocked out As we now know famously Before the official song Was even released Never mind the official song What about the official opening ceremony

Well that was obscured by smoke from the fireworks, wasn't it? I mean, the portents were not particularly encouraging. It was a pretty feeble opening so many at Lords and nobody could see what was going anyway, but the smoke billowing across the ground. So not the most encouraging start.

I remember a couple of things about it. I mean, I was still on the balcony watching it and all of a sudden two players had... Flintoff had a big pair of earrings in and all of a sudden Neil Febrother had the back of his back light blue, weren't they? You're right actually

He was a shambles from start to finish You can't worry about that Won't beat about the bush Ethn't probably got something right when he wrote what he did But I played in 92 Which was the best World Cup I played in

And it went gradually downhill culminating in 2003 But you were leading England in this And I hope you don't mind Alec We are actually going to play A little bit of archive And it won't be too long Until we do that

Following the Indian defeat And the reason I want to do that Is because You know for all the age and wisdom and context that, you know, we all now can put on things. It will illustrate as leader of the country. We all know, and it's not a cliche, for both you and Gus, putting that England shirt on meant an awful lot.

And to hear that interview, I think, is worth hearing for how much it did mean to you at the time. How do you feel, looking back now on that, you know, there you were leading this England team, and how do you remember it? I try to forget it. I'll be brutally honest. It was a shambles, and not just that tournament, and I say the opening ceremony probably summed up

how we played and how the whole World Cup for England was. But it started before that. There was contract issues. Simon Pack, who was his cricket operations manager or whatever he was. He came to see me the afternoon before the first day of the first test in Brisbane, the Ashes, to start talking about contracts and things like that. So in a way that sums up, we're trying to win an Ashes series and competing in an Aschis series. he's trying to talk about something that's not going to happen for five months.

And it didn't get any better, I'll be honest. We didn't get the squad that David Lloyd, the coach and myself, wanted. We didn't get the preparations that we wanted. And then we played like a team that wasn't going to qualify. I mean, one of our best players, Graham Thorpe, was fine £1,000, wasn't he, refusing to go to a function before the thing had even started? Yeah, exactly. Again, we wanted to train in Leicester because they were the best training facilities,

net facilities at the time, but were told to go down in Canterbury and Kent did everything that was asked of them, but we wanted less. But it was, did it feel like a home World Cup because I know now they're meant to be neutral. Back then, when I played in previous World Cups, a home country did get favours, as in where they wanted to train, practice, etc.

We didn't get that. But you can't hide behind it. We didn't play well enough. The preparations are good. I mean, to prepare for a World Cup in May in England, we went to Sharjah and Lahore, which was just like. I mean, the pitches were identical, weren't they?

And again, but that sums it up, Kevin, because we should have been in England, getting used to English conditions, getting a head start on all the opposition, and as Gus said, it was just become ECB then, I think. It was still ECB. But it was...

Send us out there, it was shambolic. He changed the opening pair, you know, the day before the tournament. Yeah, night before, the evening before, but yeah, Nick Knight got left out for the one-day specialist NASA Hussein. And again, it was... There was so much... chaos going on that you're thinking was a bit muddled. Would I do that again? To be fair, Nick

hadn't actually set the world alight. We'd had a poor tour from memory to Australia. He hadn't actually strung a lot together and we weren't playing well enough as a team. I remember talking a bumble in the Lord's dressing room saying, what do you reckon? He said, well, what do you reckon? It was the original world. What we've been doing hasn't worked or isn't working. And we went very, very left field. NASA won't mind me saying, and if he does, I don't care. We picked him. A pinch block of him. Exactly. He got us behind a run rate early on

and carried on that way. But no, it was just muddled thinking. The conversations and the meetings we had in Sharjah and some of the things that were said there, I mean, I just remember sitting there. This is just really happening. I mean, there was Goffey saying he's a David Beckham of cricket and he shouldn't be treated like this.

Alan Malawi saying, oh, the media are on our side and you're thinking, well, yeah, today they are, but tomorrow it's not going to be the case. And you're trying to negotiate with Lord McLauran who's been dealing with the unions for Tesco for years and he's going to make short work of a load of cricketers feeling sorry for themselves. We shouldn't have been put in that situation but that's how it was back then.

Nowadays it's team England and the PCA and it's well organised. I think the good thing to come out of it if you can deem a positive is it did bring the treatment of England players to head and I think the 90s was almost an error of and before the 90s and the 80s it was players lucky to be playing for England England in control from 2000 onward it was players respected, admired

looked after, treated as valuable assets which they were and the 90s was almost that tug of war either way between the players and as a consequence of that contract dispute central contracts came in and I think ever since it's been far, England players have been treated far more positively and the whole thing

has been far more positive 100%. So it was almost the moment when everything came to a head which is not ideal The current player should thank him The current player should thank Gus and me really For all these should have a central contract for a couple of years I never got one That was my last game the India game

Thanks move on Gus Let me just run through the names Stuart Austin Ian Austin Croft Eelham Fairbrother Flintoff Fraser Goff Hick Adam Holyoke Hussein Knight Malali Thorpe and Wells

That was the squad Yeah it wasn't a squad As I say that David Lloyd myself wanted. So you didn't get your squad? No, that's why I was there probably, isn't? No, you were always there, don't worry about that? No, we wanted Chris Lewis,

but we were told in no uncertain terms were we not allowed to consider him, which again was wrong, and I'd like to think the people who made that decision in hindsight would change their mind. I'm not saying, if we had Chris Lewis, we'd have played better, but going into

a tournament, you want your best players available and Chris Lewis, we were not allowed to pick. Andy Zaltzman is here for for many good reasons. One of them is to just try and make as entertaining as you can, Andy, this rather puzzling set up for the competition because it really did.

Takes some getting your head round, didn't it? Well, the World Cup had expanded from eight teams that it was in the first three World Cups that took place in England, went up to nine then for the 1992 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, then up to 12 for a World Cup in 96 held in Asia. And that had been two groups of six going, into the quarter-final problem was that made the group stage rather uncompetitive. It took three weeks to get rid of Zimbabwe, Kenya, Netherlands and the UAE.

And so they came up with a super six format. So the top three from each group of six would go into the super six, carrying the points over from their matches against the other two of the top three. And in the event of a tie break, which happened in both groups, it would be decided on net run rate, which is what England ended up losing out on. the England won three games convincingly and lost two games almost equally convincingly

and it came down to them and Zimbabwe on net run rate. Now England had a better average runs per wicket with the bat and also with the ball than Zimbabwe but in terms of scoring rates they were not as good as Zimbabwe so despite how you measure it they were playing better. How did that happen? How did Zimbabwe end up doing so well?

They had a decent side, didn't they? I mean, Neil Johnson, they lost the game, and Neil Johnson made a big hundred against the Aussies at Lords in one of the games, for example. So they had a decent side, actually. We messed up run rates, though. We played, was it Kenya at Canterbury? I messed up as well.

So it just shows, I'd slog one in the air, the end of the game at the Oval against that. I think when we had about seven or eight overs to bat, and you could have got another 10 or 15 runs by just pushing it around. I won't blame you on that. But on a serious note, Canterbury, it was Kenya, wasn't it, we played?

That's where we messed up. And again, it shows attention The detail back then is nothing compared to how it is now. It was about winning the game and the last, I'm guessing here, 25 runs took forever. Instead of knocking them off as quickly as possible, people turned it into a bit of a net. They get a bit of send a wicket practice instead of just winning the game, winning the game convincingly with the run rate being taken into consideration. But we didn't do that. So again, lack of attention to detail.

England's three victories were by eight wickets against Sri Lanka, by nine wickets against Kenya, and then by seven wickets against Zimbabwe. But when you look at the individual players' run rates through the tournament, of the top 50 run rates by batsmen, only Graham Thorpe was in the top 50 for England, and he was 44th of the strike rate of 69 per 100 balls. Whoever says we're behind in whiteball cricket? Well, can I take you to Birmingham, May the 29th and 30th,

because this game went into a reserve date, didn't it? England versus India. Now, pretty much, you were going into that game, thinking Super Sixth Place it's going to be fine as Zimbabwe beat South Africa that made it all just a little bit awkward but what are your memories of the game

against India firstly Alec it's like playing in Mumbai as soon as you walked out there it was it seemed as those 80-90% Indian fans the noise levels when we went out were big and then when the two openers for India went out there

the place erupted so that didn't help and then they outplayed us you know, simple as there was a couple of dubious decisions that went against us Graham Thorpe got a horrendous Elby W, and you could say

it was done by called Javid Actor who'd given some very eccentric decisions the previous year and a test match at Heddingley. They were plumb. We thought they were, didn't they? But we didn't play well enough, you know, and that's just been brutally honest. Things yet did go against us

and whether it's decisions, etc. But when you don't play well enough, You shouldn't feel too sorry for yourself. You're just going to take it on the chin. And that's basically what we had to do. So India scored 232 for 8 off their 50 overs and England, 169 all out after 45.2 overs. Alec, I hope, as I said earlier, you don't mind listening to this. You don't have to.

I think this is an illustration quite clearly of everything, the build-up, what's been going on in the tournament to how you felt. I don't remember this story. Following. It would be interesting to see what Addick thinks of this afterwards, talking to our very good friend, Pat Murphy. Obviously hugely disappointed. He went into the tournament with the idea of winning it, and we've been knocked out at the first stage. Did you expect this? Obviously not. No. We'd won three games, and we knew if we put in a good performance here, we'd be going into the super sixes. Unfortunately, we got outplayed. We bowled and fielded well, but the batting wasn't up for it. There was a contentious LBW decision, Graham Thorpe. Graham thought made it quite clear.

clearly disapproved of the decision. Yeah, look, you know, the umpires had to do his job. I'm not allowed to comment on umpire's decisions due to ICC regulations. You saw it, you can make the comments. Winning the toss, making the decision you did to bowl first. Any regrets on that? No, not at all. The ball moved around.

We beat the outside edge on numerous occasions. The bucket was damp. It's the right decision. But as how it's a batting that led us down, not the bowling or fielding or the toss. Alec, where does this rank and disappointments for you in your career? Well, I lost in the final in Melbourne in 92, and I said then that was the biggest disappointment the way I'm feeling now is on a similar level

I understand there's been tears in the dressing more than one or two players yeah I mean I haven't been looking around so who's crying or who isn't but we're all gutted I presume that was you Gus was it floods of tears and able to cope keep your emotions in well all I know is I was at the other end when I like Alec I mean the noise out there was like playing India it was just high-pitched sort of constant sound

especially when sort of Tendulka was out there and the second morning we came back and again it was absolutely packed with ground and it was just even the sort of two or three thousand England supporters that might have been there on the first day they've had their tickets bought by Indian so it was like an away match and I was at the non-strikers end

I'd face one ball from Sri Nathan he was quick I mean hit me on the pads before I moved forth the street was going on the leg side but I was at the non-strikers end when Alan Manali had his two stumps knocked out of the ground and that was the end of the tournament it was my last ever day as an England cricketer as well I didn't remember that.

Was you your last day as captain? Last match as captain, Malick, was it? Yeah, yeah, so again, I'd been appointed until the end of that World Cup. And then David Gravenly took about three weeks to tell me I wasn't going to be captain, even though everyone else knew I wouldn't be captain. And that was me done, then NASA took over.

And Bumble finishes coached as well. Was Bumble always going to go? Yeah, so Bumble was not being offered an extension and he needed security, quite rightly so. And then Skyd obviously come in for his, Yeah, Skyd come in for his services. He was on a couple of yellow cards by then, wasn't he? Yeah, I think he was, wasn't he?

So the coach got moved on, the captain got moved on, the physio got moved on, and the chairman of selector stayed. So you've got over it anyway, Stuart. I'm not bitter at all, am I? Just a quick word from you, Alex. When you hear interviews back there, I mean, it's pretty obvious. You know, you were putting on a very professional, as you nearly always have done, as far as I'm aware.

But that was hurting, wasn't it? You could, that's so clear to hear that. 100%. High pitched and clipped there, weren't you, compared to now. I hated losing anything, but especially when you're captain, you feel success and failure, even more. And it was. It was a World Cup that on your home territory, you're wanting to do well, you know it's high expectation. And we didn't reach, get close to reach, and the levels we were probably capable of doing.

And I guess keep saying. It was humiliated, wasn't it? It was humiliated, really. Well, we went back and played county cricket. Yeah, two days later you were playing. Yeah, you had to play county cricket, and then you were watching the rest of the world play some very good cricket. And John, the media, as always, its usual supportive self. Well, Alec was very diplomatic there, wasn't it, how disappointed he was now, 20 years on.

It's a shamblesome start to finish his memories of the tournament. So it would have been better quotes if you said that at the time, really. I might never have played for him again, I don't know. But of course, that's a shamblesomew. That summer got worse in many ways because they played, England played New Zealand. And then, of course, famously, NASA was booed on the oval of the sort of presentation ceremony. England lost. That was just by Surrey.

That was by. But Duncan Fletcher came in as coach. And I suppose, I think that summer of 99 was a real low point. But from then, I think things did improve. I mean, England, NASA came in and Fletcher, I think, did a good job, didn't he, generally? And things started to improve. Central contracts came in the following summer, as Gus has all. what he said and I think it was probably a low point but in some respect the summer of

99 was a bit of a watershed a bit of a turning point it was so much was learnt from that the arrival of Duncan Fletcher was massive and the arrival of central contracts was massive and the NASA Hussein Duncan Fletcher partnership was just what was needed at that time and thankfully they were almost given free reign to do as to do as they wanted but John in In terms of the World Cup, a huge disappointment that England were out of it. It was very difficult to get hold of that very fine song from Dave Stewart. We know that because that then came out. But in terms of the tournament, by gum, did it give us, well, probably one of the moments of international cricket?

I mean, we had two games, actually, which were fascinating between Australia and South Africa. But what about the Tide game? What can you remember of that, John? Well, Shane Worn, really. I mean, Shane Worn had had a poor tournament. I think people, he had a bit of an injury issue and so on. And he hadn't really done very much at all. but of course when it came to the semi-final

and then the final as well he suddenly started taking loads of wickets and he transformed that game I suppose there were a couple of occasions when South Africa looked to be chasing their target pretty comfortable to be but Warren came in and took two or three wickets in quick succession

and of course the final over and that famous photograph of the entire Australian team and Alan Donald had dropped his bat isn't he and his big runout mix up with Lance Clues and there's a famous photograph taken by a track called Ross Kinnaird I think

that showed all the players, all the umpires, everybody in one frame. So that was one of the greatest matches that any of us would have ever seen. Teams had actually met in the Super Sixes in Leeds. Australia had beaten them by five wickets. That game was the game where supposedly war had said, Hirsch, you've just dropped the World Cup. Since we believe that perhaps those words were never said. They'd actually played each other just a few days earlier.

Andy Zaltzman, a time to turn to you as we head into these semifinals, New Zealand versus Pakistan and this tied game between Australia and South Africa, it really was very special, wasn't it, in terms of everything to do with the stats and to do with the game's history? Yeah, there were a lot of stats flying around. Also, Australia had lost to New Zealand

by five weeks and to Pakistan already in the tournament. And from then on, they didn't lose for another 33 World Cup matches until 2011. So it was the start of a period of Australian domination. In terms of the tournament as a whole, was a bowler-dominated tournament, but we were starting to see

more and more teams use attacking bats from the top of the order Gilchrist had come in for Australia. He didn't have a massively successful tournament. And then Klusner, the player of the tournament, 17 wickets average 20, and 281 runs with a strike rate of 122 and only out twice. And yet it was arguably his mistake that cost South Africa a likely World Cup victory. Three balls left, one to win. Fleming in and Bowles.

Klusner hits back past the bowler. There's a mix-up. Oh, there could be a run-out. There will be a run-out. It's a tie. Australia is in the final. Australia is in a fourth, an unprecedented fourth World Cup final after an unbelievable tie at Edgebaston. Donald has been run out after an incredible, impossible to describe mix-up. South Africa all-out. Two hundred and three. The match is. tied in Australia go to Lords and the final As we mentioned before

England players perhaps back with their counters Were you able to watch or listen to this Either of you, Hanuk or Gus? Yeah we were just saying off air then We both watched it. We can't actually remember where we were Whether it was after a day's play Or whether we're in a hotel bar But I remember watching it

I was actually hoping at South Africa We're going to get over the line I'm not a great fan of seeing Australia win And could you believe what you were seeing? No, it was one of those ones where you stood there and think, what they

done that for? I mean, there's two balls left, Clues are smacking it everywhere and all of a sudden you've run a, I mean, he's going to hit the ball in the gaps somewhere. I mean, if you do that, you do it last ball, you don't do it with two balls still to go to. It was just complete by the South Africans. I mean, I'm trying to remember who was at foot, was it, I think it was Donald.

Donald sat off. He dropped his bathing, didn't he? Yeah. It's just, when you're under pressure, I don't like that word, but there's that expectation, how muddled thinking does come in, and that's a perfect example of how not to stay cool and in control of what you're doing. And if we talk of 99 and England perhaps trying to improve things after that, from a South African point of view, John, I mean, this is continues to haunt them a little, hasn't it?

Yeah, they've sort of developed a reputation for chokers in global tournaments, and they've had some magnificent players down the years, you know, but, you know, DeVilleers and Stain and these kind of guys, but the number of tournaments they've won, well, it's non-existent, isn't it? I mean, they had the in a subsequent World Cup there was a drama with a duck with Lewis

wasn't there. Durban, yeah, when they played at home. Sean Pollock, yeah. So, you know, whether it's a fair label to have, but they certainly have got that label to an extent of being chokers. They have been the dominant team

in one day international cricket since the previous World Cup in 1996. They'd won 57 and lost 16 in between the two World Cups. Australia were rough about 50-50 win-loss. So South Korea had been very much the dominant side and it'd probably be the strongest side

through the tournament as well until those four fateful minutes. Pakistan had beat New Zealand in the other semi-final by nine wickets, however, it was a bit one-sided to say the least. Clear memory of that, John I'm sure you were there covering that one. I was actually one of the great moments of the

World Cup was Shia Bactar's Yorker to Stephen Fleming. Do remember that? I think round the wicket bowled at 90 miles now, probably 95 miles now and just shattered his stumps. That was one of the most dramatic single deliveries that I mean, showing back to that stage was seriously quickly. He was one of these superstars of the tournament of world cricket at that stage.

But in terms of the final itself, Australia, Pakistan, very one-sided. It was over in no time at all. Just a quick look at the scores. Pakistan, all out for 132 after 39 overs. And Australia got there and they got there in good time as well. After 20.1 overs, Gus. I went to that. So I got into that.

And I just remember the flats outside lords being redeveloped. up to that moment in time those that new block sort of behind the tavern stand and it was just sort of scaffolding with sort of concrete so there was nothing filled in and obviously Pakistan fans had sort of found a way in and there was there were hundreds of them on the top of this roof looking into laws to to talk health and safety no I think it was one of those situations because it's risky isn't it where people are going up there saying you're not allowed to be up there but if you create a state of panic when people are 15 floors up or whatever it was who knows what happened. But I just remember that, I mean, the game was

all over, wasn't it? It was a non-event. Alec and Gus, thank you very much, because you say it wasn't the highlight of your career, was it? No, it's pretty much to have gone through that again. It was the end of mine. I do look back at it fondly. I mean, I enjoyed the preparation.

I know there was the sort of argument about the contracts, but the preparation we had, the sort of being almost like a touring side in England together for two or three weeks, preparing at a ground. I really enjoyed that sort of the togetherness that was done there and it's great to have played

in the World Cup even though obviously it wasn't particularly successful but it was my only World Cup and so to have taken part in it, taken one wicket I think it was Alistair Campbell I think caught behind that was my only World Cup looking but to have played two or three

I think three games and my last over I think was a maiden to Sachin Tendulker in the Birmingham game so remember some positive things about it Well, Alec, Gus, John and Andy, any more stats to throw out it? Just to round off the series, give us a stat. To highlight it was very much a bowlers tournament, batsman collectively average 25, the second lowest after the 1979 World Cup runs per over just under four and a half.

And it's gone up every single World Cup since then, up to 5.6 per over in the 2015 World Cup. So again, it was a time when one day cricket started evolving rapidly again. It might not have been a great World Cup. for England, but it was a superb World Cup for fans of extras. They clamp down on wides and as a result of which over well, I think it was about

1,400 runs scored in wides and no balls. There was a wide every 20, around about every 24 deliveries was a wide and over 11% of the runs in the tournament were scored in extras. So if you're a fan of extras, it was the World Cup to end the worst side. You haven't got, who was the worst side for that?

It's true. The TMS podcast, from BBC Radio 5 Live.