There are similarities between 1992 World Cup and 2019, says Phil Tufnell

"Times have changed. Shots have changed. Jos Buttler with all his scoops. Totals of 350 are the new 250. Yet there are parallels"

Phil Tufnell sees parallels with this World Cup and the one he played in – 1992 – despite the transformation in one-day cricket in the last 27 years.

“On the surface they seem worlds apart but 1992 was probably England’s best campaign, and we can have similar success this time – or maybe go that one step further,” he told The Cricketer.

“The formats for this tournament and the one in 1992 are similar. One-day cricket was not as big then. There was no T20. It was the first one with coloured clothing. It was a little bit ‘turn up and see how we go’. England had a couple of one-day specialists in Neil Fairbrother and Dermot Reeve, but generally it was the Test cricketers having a game of one-day cricket.

“Times have changed. Shots have changed. Jos Buttler with all his scoops – back then ‘scoops’ were what you drank in the bar afterwards. Totals of 350 are the new 250. When will someone get 500?

“Yet there are parallels. Graham Gooch had a good strategy in 1992. We should have won it. The eventual winners, Pakistan, should have been eliminated when we bowled them out for 74 at Adelaide in a group game (the rain rules saved them). Likewise, this time we have the team, the tools, and we have every chance of winning it.”

The former slow left-armer played in four of England’s 11 matches at that tournament, including his last appearance, the shock defeat to Zimbabwe at Albury. He still has vivid memories of South Africa suddenly needing 22 off one ball – thanks to those rain rules again – in the semi-final though; and England losing to Pakistan in the final in front of a record crowd of 87,000.

^{Tufnell sees similarities in the 1992 competition and this year's tournaments.}

“A major difference between then and now is the bowling,” he said. “The dibbly-dobblies don’t cut it any more. The likes of Chris Harris and Gavin Larsen were very effective for New Zealand in 1992. They would go out of the park now. That’s why Jofra Archer has been rushed in by England because he has real pace, and we also have Mark Wood. You need pace, and we also have a very good spin department in Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali.

“There is also room for craft and guile. I’d rather see someone like Mitchell Santner bowl (for New Zealand) than a bowler firing in darts.”

A big crowd turned out at Beddington Cricket Club, near Croydon, to see Tufnell speak, and pass tips on to the youngsters. They heard him praise the white-ball revolution England undertaken.

“It’s all a far cry from 1999, when we got knocked out before the tournament song came out,” he said. “We were also in a pretty low place after the last World Cup (2015). Andrew Strauss said, ‘hang on, we need to put more emphasis on limited-overs cricket’. Trevor Bayliss was brought in because of his one-day expertise, and now we come to this point. An England win would be amazing – bring it on!”

Phil Tufnell visited Beddington CC to unveil the Nissan Energy Solar technology that has been installed to harness energy from the sun, to support the club’s sustainable energy generation and storage. More than 600 ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 tickets are up for grabs for fans – tweet @NissanUK using #SweepTheNation

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