1992
Sixty-two, with a runner
Neil Fairbrother was the non-striker for both of Wasim Akram’s deliveries in the 1992 World Cup final. He was also the man whose innings had made the chase a chase, and the card holds the whole of it.
England were 69 for four in the twenty-first over of the 1992 World Cup final, chasing 250, when Neil Fairbrother walked in. Graham Gooch had just gone. Ian Botham, Alec Stewart and Graeme Hick had gone before him, for 24 between them.
Fairbrother batted at five. He was still there when the two balls that everyone remembers were bowled, and he was at the other end for both of them.
The stand
He and Allan Lamb added 72. It took them from 69 for four to 141, and it took the match from a formality back to a contest. Lamb’s 31 came from 41 balls with two fours, and the stand was the only one of England’s innings to pass 40. In the thirty-fifth over England needed 109 from the 92 balls that remained, with six wickets standing, and that was a chase again.
Fairbrother reached fifty with a leg strain. From 51 onwards Stewart ran for him. The card records it in a single line under the innings: Stewart acted as a runner for Fairbrother after he reached 51.
The two balls
Wasim Akram came back for the thirty-fifth over. Its fifth ball bowled Lamb for 31. Its sixth bowled Chris Lewis for nought. Fairbrother watched both from twenty-two yards, with a runner beside him and no way to influence either.
141 for four had become 141 for six, and the man who had rebuilt the innings was now batting with the tail.
Full scorecard: England v Pakistan, World Cup final, Melbourne, 25 March 1992 →
The ledger
Fairbrother made 62 from 70 balls in 97 minutes, with three fours. His strike rate of 88 was the highest of England’s top seven by some distance: Lamb struck at 75, Hick at 47, Gooch at 44. In a chase that was always behind the rate, he was the one specialist batsman scoring at something close to it.
He was caught behind by Moin Khan off Aaqib Javed in the forty-third over, with the score on 180. England needed 70 from 43 balls at that point, with three wickets left. Dermot Reeve went at 183 in the next over. The last three wickets added 47 and were not enough, and England were all out for 227 with four balls unused.
Aaqib Javed finished with two for 27 from ten overs. His two wickets were Stewart, in the eighth over, and Fairbrother, in the forty-third. He took the wicket that opened the innings up and the one that closed it, and his name is not in the story either.
What the position was worth
Fairbrother came in at 69 for four and left at 180 for seven. In the 111 runs between those two scores he made 62. Take him out of it and the chase does not reach the thirty-fifth over as a chase, and the two balls are bowled to a side already beaten rather than to one that has just got back into it.
That is the strange arithmetic of the other end. The two deliveries mattered because of the innings that made them matter, and the innings is remembered, if at all, as the thing that was happening while they were bowled.
What the card holds
Sixty-two, 70 balls, 97 minutes, three fours. A runner from 51. Two wickets fallen at the other end in consecutive balls while he stood there. A dismissal at 180 with 70 still needed.
Every one of those figures is on the card and none of them appears in any account of the final. The account has room for two balls and a trophy. Fairbrother is in it as the man the ball was not bowled to, which is true, and is not what he did.
••••••
No. 10 in The Other Guy, a series of 24.
If you got something out of this, there is a tip jar.
Buy me a coffee →