EYEWITNESS: MINOR COUNTIES v PAKISTANIS: JULY 29–30 1992

WORDS BY SCOTT OLIVER

Five years after Shakoor Rana and Mike Gatting’s finger-wagging flashpoint in Faisalabad, Pakistan’s 1992 tour of England unfolded in an atmosphere every bit as rancorous, with English mistrust and allegations centred around Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis’s brilliant reverse swing.

World Cup winners Pakistan edged a thrilling Lord’s Test by two wickets, Wasim and Waqar coming together at 95 for 8 chasing 138. In the next Test, umpire Roy Palmer and paceman Aqib Javed became embroiled in a row – initially over intimidatory bowling to tailenders, later (bizarrely) about the manner in which the bowler’s jumper was handed back. 

Debutant Neil Mallender then bowled England to victory in Leeds, and before the teams met for their Oval decider, the Pakistanis headed to Marlow for a low-key two-day fixture against the Minor Counties, resting Wasim, Aqib, Javed Miandad, Salim Malik and Ramiz Raja, yet still calling on eight men involved in the Tests; they were on a bonus from the sponsors for winning at least nine of the county fixtures. Marlow was a lucky ground for the Minor Counties: that summer they had beaten Sussex there for just their fifth win in 115 Benson & Hedges Cup outings. But they were far from at full strength themselves, with six of the team making representative debuts.

Graeme Calway (Dorset) A lot of the guys got picked for England Amateurs that year. There was a tour at the end of the year, so they made themselves unavailable.

Mark Humphries (Staffordshire) We were up for it. In my eyes we went into these games thinking they have a hole up their backsides, same as us, and they weren’t unbeatable.  

Pakistan were quickly rocking at 37 for 5.

Calway I got three in one over: Asif Mujtaba chopped on; Naved Anjum nicked behind; Moin, I bowled a leg-cutter first up, then an inswinger and he left it: bowled off stump.

This became 132 for 8, before Waqar Younis (57) joined top-scorer Zahid Fazal (93) to shore things up.

Nik Adams (Cambridgeshire) I got Waqar caught and bowled in the end, second or third ball I bowled. It came out wrong. It looked like I bounced him. I remember standing in the pitch going, “I’ve just bounced the quickest bowler in the world. What an idiot!”

Waqar had taken 117 wickets at 14 for Surrey the previous summer, so provided a considerable threat. However, Minor Counties batted 48 overs in reply and lost only two wickets, with an unbeaten partnership of 104 runs shared by skipper Nick Folland (84*) of Devon, and Cheshire’s Ian Cockbain (45*).

Calway ‘Coey’ had come back from county cricket, from Lancashire, and Nick was on the verge of going to play county cricket with Somerset. They were the backbone of our batting.

Cockbain Waqar was dead easy. He bowled me a bouncer, which I fended off to square leg, and the guy hurled it at the bowler’s end. So I smashed him for a five! He was a massive handful, but he didn’t get the extra bounce, so he was manageable.

Calway I can remember us all being happy Waqar was playing, and disappointed Wasim wasn’t playing. Waqar bowled in training shoes on the first evening.

After declaring overnight, 51 runs in arrears, the third innings saw some Pakistani batting practice for Inzamam-ul-Haq (44), Aamer Sohail (46), and skipper Shoaib Mohammad (63*), before the declaration came. 

Humphries Inzy hit one of the biggest sixes I’ve ever seen: over the protective fence, over the road, over the house, and into a back garden. But Tony Smith had his revenge. I stumped him not long after. He didn’t try too hard to get back either! Big unit.

Keith Donohue (Devon) I don’t think there was any collusion. There were good crowds there both days. The Pakistanis would have seen that and wanted to make a game of it.

The Minors were set a fourth-innings chase of exactly 250 in 46 overs. Calway made a run-a-ball 57, as he and Paul Burn (28) got them off to a rollicking start.

Calway We talked about never having a better chance to beat Pakistan. I was an attacking batsman, so this was ideally set up for me to try to get the team off to a start. I remember driving Waqar for four and thinking: not a good idea. I was hanging on the back foot next ball, but he didn’t bowl a short ball. It was good length and I just threw my hands through it and back-foot drove him for four again. It was the shot of my life.

Adams I remember talking to Mushtaq after the game and he said they thought ‘Cal’ was one of the best cricketers they’d seen in England that summer.

Calway I was first out, and I remember walking off and going into the changing room and Nick Folland was like a little five-year-old: “We can win this! We can win this!”

With momentum established, Adams was promoted to No.3.

Adams I was absolutely wired. Naved Anjum seemed to hit the bat really hard. But then I got inside one and hit him over the stand at backward square. The ball hit an ice cream van. That was a lot of fun. I was a free spirit, but it was a tactical decision to chuck me in at No.3, not an emotional one. ‘Foll’ wasn’t the sort of skipper to give everyone a game. He knew him, being left-handed, and Coey, being a really good player of spin, would be required to marshall us home. So they were held back.

Cockbain They were only small boundaries, but it was spinning square with trampoline bounce. Mushy had only bowled leg-spinners at me – leggie, leggie, leggie, leggie – and I was just waiting for the shorter one. I had cut him a couple of times for four, but he was sort of setting me up. Then he bowled this wrong ’un, but he dragged it down. I didn’t really pick it, but it was short, so I smacked it over midwicket for a one-bounce four. He looked at me, long and hard, and I just grinned. He obviously thought, “Oh shit, he can pick me”. But I couldn’t. I only smiled because he’d dragged it down. He didn’t bowl me another wrong ’un for the rest of the innings!

Adams Foll swept everything. But when he went, at 170-odd for 4, there was a bit of a procession.

Humphries Mushtaq bamboozled me a little bit. I couldn’t pick him at all. I wasn’t the only one!

With the Minor Counties having subsided to 196 for 7, the giantkilling opportunity seemed lost. Yet Cockbain built partnerships of 16 with Jimmy Lewis, 26 with Keith Donohue and 14 with Smith.

Donohue I got a back injury in that game and didn’t bowl second dig. I spent the whole day on the physio’s bench and only got off it to go in with Coey. My 2 was crucial!

Adams Ian stuck to his game. He’d hit a four, a single, and just kept us in it, kept us in it. Then when he got to 60 he just took control of the game. I remember him running down the wicket and hitting Mushy clean over the pavilion. It was an imperious shot. I remember thinking then: “No one’s going to take this away from us now”.

Mushtaq finished with 6 for 43, and the Minors entered the final over, bowled by Sohail, nine down and needing 14. 

Cockbain First ball I skipped down the wicket and hit him over extra-cover for a one-bounce four. Then I had a big whoosh and could have been stumped. I fell over a bit and scrambled back. I remember thinking then: “Come on, don’t be stupid. Don’t overhit”.

Adams They actually bowled some part-time spin – Mujtaba, Inzamam, Shoaib, perhaps to keep us interested or perhaps because it was turning – but Sohail had bowled 10 overs in the World Cup final. He bowled left-arm darts and was brought on to rescue the game.

Cockbain Third ball, he tried to tuck me up and I swept him over square-leg for six. Now I couldn’t sweep very well, but the week before Geoff Miller, who was playing for Cheshire at the time, had given me a lesson in sweeping. I’d been trying to hit it too fine all my life and he said just whack it in front of square. It just came as a bolt from the blue. All of a sudden I could sweep! After that, they thought I was great off my legs, but I wasn’t. That sweep shot put the willies up them, really.

Four off three required, and the tourists were under the pump. 

Cockbain They didn’t really know what to do and were all arguing among themselves in Urdu, which was great to see. There was 2,500 there, and they were all Pakistanis. 

Two and a dot left two needed from the final ball, and all four results possible…

Cockbain I ran down again and hit him over the top for four, and I don’t think I stopped running for 20 minutes.

Adams I ran across the pitch with Jimmy Lewis and we literally mounted Coey. It was such a great knock. A great game, played in a great spirit, with a great crowd and great atmosphere. Good times. 

Cockbain I played in Roses matches, beat Northamptonshire with Cheshire, but this was my greatest memory in cricket. I’ve actually got the full scorecard up on my wall.

It was the Minor Counties’ seventh (and penultimate) victory over a full international team. The game’s lack of first-class or List A status did little to kill the buzz.

Donohue To pull off a giantkilling against a county – in the NatWest Trophy or the Benson & Hedges Cup – is one thing, but against a very good international team was something very, very special for us as club cricketers.

Adams We had beaten the world champions! Jimmy Lewis and I got royally pissed, going from one pub to the next around Marlow, where I had family. We ended up sleeping in Jimmy’s car, thinking that someone from breakfast TV would be contacting us in the morning to tell our wonderful story. It didn’t happen, and when we went to the newsagent we couldn’t find it in any of the papers: just two inches on the back of The Times. 

This article appears in our August issue.