FROM THE WORLD CUP ARCHIVE: Eyewitness - England's 1987 World Cup

Simon Lister and Vithushan Ehantharajah spoke to John Emburey, Phillip DeFreitas, Gladstone Small, Mike Gatting and Eddie Hemmings to get an eyewitness account of the closest England have ever come to winning the World Cup

The 1987 Cricket World Cup was the first to be hosted outside of England. India and Pakistan shared the responsibility, and the former hosts entered the tournament away from home conditions. Yet England we not deterred; they reached the final – beating hosts and holders India along the way – before losing to Australia in the final.

In the April 2011 edition of The Cricketer, Simon Lister and Vithushan Ehantharajah spoke to John Emburey, Phillip DeFreitas, Gladstone Small, Mike Gatting and Eddie Hemmings to get an eyewitness account of the closest England have ever come to winning the World Cup.

John Emburey (England spinner)

I wasn’t playing well enough in ’79 and I was banned in ’83, so it was my first World Cup. You hear lots of stories from past players about India and Pakistan but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Phillip DeFreitas (England fast bowler)

I was 21 and quite naïve. I only wanted to play for England and I hardly registered it was a World Cup.

Gladstone Small (England fast bowler)

It was dry and hot and when you ran into bowl the dust was in your throat. On the other hand, I loved the excitement of the places where we played and the fact that the people loved cricket.

Mike Gatting (England captain)

It’s a tricky place to go. You needed a game plan and to be well prepared because the wickets were so different and the conditions were unlike any other.

DeFreitas

It was totally new for me because my only other big tour had been to Australia

The Australia tour the previous winter has been a great success

Gatting

We were a very good side. We had beaten them [Australia] down there. We had beaten West Indies in a one-day series over there are we realised we could match the best. We thought there was no reason why we could not go far in this tournament, even win it.

DeFreitas

We’d won the Ashes, we’d won the World Series and the Benson & Hedges one-dayers, so were on a high. Our cricket was brilliant and we had a very balanced one-day side. We thought we could go all the way.

Small

It was a very experienced team – Gooch, Gatting, Lamb, but with young players too. Myself and Phillip DeFreitas. The feel-good factor was high. We really thought we could compete at that level and do well.

Emburey

Back then if you were a Test player, you tended to be in the one-day side too because they thought you were the best players they had.

Eddie Hemmings (England spinner)

Mike Gatting seemed to like two spinners in the side, but I never really knew why I was picked or why I’d been dropped when I played for England.

England’s first game was against West Indies at Gujranwala in Pakistan. Hemmings wasn’t picked.

^{Phil DeFreitas bowls to Kapil Dev}

Hemmings

We set off and it was still black outside. We were staying a long way from the ground. The game started terribly early but it still got bloody warm. I was glad to be in the dressing room.

Small

It was the hottest place I’ve ever played. You couldn’t breathe. You saw stars after bowling three balls.

DeFreitas

The doctor said they day before “make sure you get lots of fluid down you” and I got bored of the water and started drinking Fanta. It all came back up about half way through my seventh over.

England looked as if they would lose their first game. Six wickets down, they needed 91 from 10 overs, then 35 from three. Allan Lamb was still in. Last over, 13 to win.

Emburey

Only one or two people in our side could get that off the last over and Lamby was one of them. He had skill, timing, he could stay still and use the pace of the ball to hit it very hard. He couldn’t slog.

Hemmings

He just stood there are took them apart. He was awesome all around the wicket.

Emburey

Courtney Walsh bowling four wides down the leg side helped.

It was an unexpected and thrilling win. Lamb was shattered.

Small

He came into the dressing room, raised his hands and fell over.

Hemmings

We put Allan under a could shower still in his kit.

Small

We sat him in a chair and kept the water on for about half an hour. He couldn’t talk. Probably the quietest half an hour Allan Lamb has ever spent in his life.

Hemmings

I seem to remember either Curtly Ambrose or Courtney was pretty much carried off the pitch. I think that’s why we won – because that pair bowled too long at the end.

Back at the hotel the day finished with a treat for DeFreitas.

"We’d won the Ashes, we’d won the World Series and the Benson & Hedges one-dayers, so were on a high"

DeFreitas

I was in the lift with Derek Pringle and the doors opened. Muhammad Ali got in. I was young and excited and we had a little sparring session right there and Ali did me a little shimmy. It had turned into a very special day.

But England were not throwing too many knockout punches. Two defeats by Pakistan and a victory over Sri Lanka followed. A seamer was dropped and the plan to play two spinners was brought in.

Hemmings

What was the difference between me and John Emburey? He was tall and slim. I was short and fat. Actually, it was trajectory. I had to five the ball a little bit more air because I always wanted to turn it. In one-day cricket John bowled the top spinner a lot more and I tried to spin it.

Emburey

Eddie said to me and others that I always bowled in a tunnel. I never thought that was quite true. But as a pair we complemented each other. Eddie was perhaps a little more attacking and I looked to keep it tight and to create pressure. We were a pair of good, cleaver bowlers even though the pitches there were flat and better for batsmen.

England got better. A second win against West Indies and another against Sri Lanka meant they had a place in the semi-final. Graham Gooch was batting very well and Gatting was getting the best from his side.

Hemmings

Top, top skipper. He liked spinners, you see.

DeFreitas

Gatting was my first captain and my best. I felt like every time I played for him, he believed that I’d do well. And I needed that badly. I was still an insecure young lad. People thought I was full of confidence but I was often very nervous. Gatt gave me that belief.

The semi-final would be against India at Bombay. And Pakistan would play Australia. Most people were expecting and hoping for a final between the hosts.

DeFreitas

We looked at the wicket the day before. It was brown, looked like it would turn and they had spinners in the side. So, Graham Gooch got all of our spinners to bowl to him and all he did was sweep. Trying to play the sweep virtually every ball.

Emburey

I bloody well wouldn’t have done too much bowling at him the day before. But I would agree that Goochie looked at a pitch and worked out how he was going to play against certain bowlers on it.

DeFreitas

On the day he played one of the best I’ve seen in one-day cricket.

Small

The Indians bowled way outsie off-stump to a six-three field. They didn’t know what hit them. It was planned for and a great piece of strategic batting.

Emburey

When Maninder Singh bowled with the field he had set, Goochie knew straight away the sort of shot he was going to play. He just swept the s**t out of him. I think that innings didn’t do a great deal for Maninder Singh’s career. He got so much criticism. And with Gatting hitting him on the off side, the boy was knackered all round.

Gooch made 115. Then an early wicket when India batted brought more dejection for the huge crowd.

^{"I love him to bits but I wish he had not played that reverse sweep"}

DeFreitas

I still have the photo. Knocking over Sunil Gavaskar’s off peg for four. They say that it was his last international match. I always tried to hit off-stump. There was no swing out there but this one hit the seam just right, came back and bowled him. I can still see it now. After bearing India in India in the semi-final, we fully expected to go on and win the cup.

England won by 35 runs. They were in the final against Australia at Calcutta.

DeFreitas

We thought we were favourites and we’d go on and win it. We had outplayed them in the Tests and the one-day series the previous winter and were full of confidence. We fancied ourselves definitely.

Hemmings

We had a big discussion about what we were going to do. It was quite detailed. And one of the first things we agreed was that we must, must pitched the ball up to the Australian openers.

Emburey

We weren’t over-confident because things can always go wrong. And they did. Geoff Marsh and David Boon smashed us all over the place.

To the tune of 75 for the first wicket at a good rate.

DeFreitas

I’ve never been so nervous. I’d played in big games and I thought I’d be all right. The fireworks, the noise. There was supposed to be 90,000 in there but it seemed like 150,000. Honestly, I could not think. When I bowled, the ball felt like a football, I couldn’t feel myself running in. My lengths were all wrong. I’ve never bowled such a bad opening spell. I think it’s what they call the occasion getting to you.

Emburey

For his age, DeFreitas was a very mature cricketer and he’d bowled brilliantly in Australia. You’d think he wouldn’t feel the nerves but he didn’t bowl well.

Small

I was nervous, too. I needed more time to take it all in. They were quite good at playing the short ball.

Emburey

I would have taken one of them off after two overs and brought Neil Foster on early.

Small

Good fielding and clever spin bowling managed to drag us back.

Gatting

The final was probably our worst match that tournament.

"We felt we could chase it. They didn’t have a quality spinner and we were winning the game"

DeFreitas

Gladstone and I bowled badly. Eddie and John and Neil Foster clawed it back. When we came off, we still fancied it.

Australia made 253 for 5. Despite Tim Robinson getting out when the score was on one, England got themselves back in the game.

Small

It was a nice start but slow. Gatting came in and played a bulldog knock and went after the spinners, clouting them.

Emburey

We felt we could chase it. They didn’t have a quality spinner and we were winning the game.

Then the England captain did something that he will never be allowed to forget. The 20th century has witnessed more infamous shots – like the one that started the First World War for instance – but for England cricket fans, Gatting’s reverse sweep is right up there.

Hemmings

We were cruising – absolutely cruising it. Allan Border only came on because they were getting plonked all-round the ground.

Small

Gatting had a mental aberration and played that bloody awful shot.

Gatting

It was a make-or-break move for Allan to bring himself on. I knew where I wanted to hit it and I was still in good nick, so the thought on mishitting it did not cross my mind.

Until after it happened

Gatting

I’d been playing that shot pretty regularly and successful that tournament. I remember getting good value for it against India in the semi-final at Bombay. It was a shot that I had practiced in the nets and used effectively in matches, so I did not see it was a risk.

DeFreitas

I love him to bits but I wish he had not played that reverse sweep. People do silly things when the pressure’s on.

Gatting

The trouble was it was a bit too wide; it probably would have been a wide down the leg side. He would have had to bowl the next ball a lot straighter and maybe that would have been a better ball to hit.

The England captain, having made 41, hit the ball into his shoulder rather than the boundary board. Wisden records what happened next: “… whence it looped into Dyer’s gloves. The Australians’ joy was unconcealed.” So was the consternation in the England dressing room.

Small

“Skipper – you were hitting the ball so well. Why?”

^{Bill Athey}

Gatting

I was the captain, I played a poor shot and it would have been a side had I left it and I had to accept that. The press was quite right in their criticism of me and it was compounded by the fact that we were going quite well at the time.

Emburey

Let’s be fair; it was a shot he played well. But in a World Cup final to the first ball Allan Border bowled in a spell. He was a part-timer, so you didn’t know if it was going to be short or wide. It could have been a bloody leg-stump yorker. So, to set yourself to play the shot first ball was poor judgement.

Gatting’s dismissal probably changed the course of the game. Australia had hope, England got the jitters. More misfortune followed.

Hemmings

The reverse sweep was silly but Bill Athey getting run out wasn’t clever either. He didn’t need to do it – we had plenty of batting. We stopped playing cricket, had some pressure, new batters and all of a sudden it became very difficult.

Emburey

It was a second run he didn’t need to take. Athey would have never have eased up because he’s not like that. He just misjudged the second run.

A total that England had in their sights was now disappearing. Briefly the lower order fizzed but it was fizz mixed with desperation. England finished seven runs short. They had lost the World Cup.

DeFreitas

Seeing the Australians celebrate wasn’t brilliant. Then we went on a six-week tour of Pakistan.

Hemmings

It didn’t matter if I’d been playing for the village 2nd XI or in a World Cup final. Losing felt exactly the same. I hated it. Dreaded it. Could not put up with it.

But the passage of time must have helped the healing process, at least.

Emburey

What? I’m still p****d off we lost that game. Still today, now, talking to you. It was careless batting that cost us. The country had only ever won a football World Cup at the time. We didn’t bottle it, we cocked it up. I’m still gutted I’m not a World Cup winner.

This article was published in the April 2011 edition of The Cricketer - the home of the best cricket analysis and commentary, covering the international, county, women's and amateur game

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