Australia entered the third group stage match of the 1999 World Cup with one win and one loss, but the team’s poor performance had some players privately exploring the option of taking a holiday in the south of France in anticipation of an early elimination.
That feeling was heightened when Australia suffered their second defeat in the third match against Pakistan in Leeds, teetering on the brink of an embarrassing early elimination.
The team’s brain trust, captain Steve Waugh and manager Geoff Marsh, had wanted to field swing bowlers Damien Fleming and Adam Dale with the new ball, believing the damp conditions would create opportunities for early wickets before pace bowler Glenn McGrath could target the opposition middle-order.
However, Dale only scored one goal in the first two matches and was replaced by fellow seamer Paul Reiffel in the crucial third match against Pakistan at Leeds.
Dale did not play in the remainder of the match, and the substitution brought no immediate change in Australia’s fortunes, as they lost by 10 runs in the highest scoring match of the tournament up to that point.
It was a very entertaining match, with Inzamam-ul-Haq showing off his unique running style as he and his batting partner were at the same end three times, resulting in two run-outs.
Inzamam and Abdul Razzaq were both on the striker’s end but Inge only managed to get back to safety as a direct hit on the striker’s end ricocheted just out of Adam Gilchrist’s reach.
The pair survived, putting on 188 for the fourth wicket before Razzaq became Shane Warne’s only victim of the match, and then took a further 52 runs off 31 balls before Inzamam ran out the rampaging Mohammad Yousuf.
After Inzamam’s 81, Fleming delivered a toe-shattering yoke ball that initially looked to run the captain for a single, but the Pakistani fell to the ground comically slowly. His self-protective instincts kicked in and he tried to crawl to safety, but Wasim Akram landed on the ground.
Moin Khan’s 12 off 31 put Pakistan ahead at 8-275, but Australia responded poorly and Gilchrist’s lean runs followed for a duck.
Mark Waugh and Ricky Ponting put on 91 for the second wicket but both fell soon after, along with Darren Lehmann, leaving Steve Waugh and Michael Bevan to fill the gap.
A flashpoint occurred during this partnership, sparking an immediate response from the captain that would prove crucial over the next month.
Waugh said he had finished his run and was looking to turn at the bowler’s end to steal a second run when Pakistan’s speed demon Shoaib Akhtar caught him with a “sly kick”.
The two were already arguing when Shoaib was introduced into the attack and Waugh was smashed onto his pads by an inswinging ball from Shoaib but was lucky to escape an LBW appeal.
But Worf was surprised by the kick and claimed that it awakened “an innate fighting spirit within me.”
“As discreetly as I could, I walked him (Shoaib) a few steps and then said, ‘Every dog has its day,'” he revealed in his memoir. “Get out of your comfort zone”.
“He just held his head high and kept walking.”
Shoaib was formally reprimanded for the incident, but Waugh declined to comment when asked about the incident after the match.
Years later, Shoaib finally shared his testimony and said:
“He was running and I intentionally bumped into him. I was very rude to him. He’s a great player, but in the heat of the moment, I said, ‘You should be ashamed. You’re completely out.’ said.
Given that the next meeting between the two teams was the Cup final at Lord’s, with Australia racing home and Shoaib finishing with an unflattering 0-37 from his four overs, Waugh’s warning proved even more prescient than the mythical retort that “we’ve just dropped out of the World Cup” – something you would never say to Herschelle Gibbs.
Shoaib ultimately came into his own at Headingley, bowling Waugh for 49 in the 45th over with a fast-paced inswinger that effectively decided the match as Australia lost by 10 runs in conditions as harsh as the Yorkshire weather.
After South Africa went through the qualifying rounds undefeated in 1996 but were then eliminated in the first play-off, the ICC tweaked the structure of the competition in 1999, introducing the Super Six format to provide a fairer result. .
This meant that after an initial round robin with two groups of seven teams, the top three teams from each group would advance to the Super Six to face the other half of the teams.
The top four teams from this phase will progress to the semi-finals, but to ensure that previous results in the tournament are recognised, teams will also retain the points they have earned against other participants in the Super Six.
Australia are locked in a battle with New Zealand, Pakistan and the West Indies to qualify for the second stage and will need some creative thinking if they are to avoid an embarrassing early exit.
Australia, who had won one of their first three World Cup matches, appeared likely to miss out, joining fellow Group B members Scotland and Bangladesh.
But Waugh remained defiant, pointing out that his team, whose only victory was a halting one against Scotland, only needed to win seven games on the trot to become world champions.
“A lot of people are already looking down on us, but that’s a good thing because it motivates the players,” he told reporters in the gloom after the defeat to Leeds.
Immediately after the defeat to Pakistan, with discontent simmering within the group, a players’ meeting was held in the Headingley dressing room and the captain advised that no one should leave until all simmering resentment had been resolved.
The meeting lasted for several hours, with Ponting saying “a lot was discussed and there was a lot of personal stuff going on around the room”.
“That was probably the turning point that turned the whole World Cup around.”
There was another meeting as the players moved from the changing rooms to a pub in Leeds, where Waugh called together several struggling quicks and a “Bowlers Group” was formed.
Waugh tasked them to come up with plans according to the different stages of their rivals’ batting and to contain the scoring rate, especially in the last 10 overs as Pakistan added 108 runs and New Zealand did the same.
The more obvious change was McGrath’s return with the new ball for the next match, a cup rookie against Bangladesh at Chester-le-Street, an encounter that in retrospect can be seen as transformative.
