Brandes trumps England, and Mark Waugh at his best

Chicken farmer and Waugh games

The amateur shames professional England

Brandes cleans up Robin Smith during the course of a remarkable spell© Getty Images

"This is the problem with you amateur sides, you don't know how to just rotate the strike and take singles. You watch the professionals come out of the lunch. They'll just knock the ball into the gaps and run their ones and twos and win this game easily." Condescending words of wisdom from the mouth of Geoffrey Boycott to a distraught Dave Houghton, Zimbabwe's captain, at the lunch break of the minnows' last game against England, one of the tournament favourites.

Zimbabwe had been skittled for 134, and Houghton recalls: "Geoffrey came and saw me during the lunch time. He came to the change looking for some autographs on some cricket balls." The old pro's derision was backed up by facts - England had just lost one game out of six while Zimbabwe, just at the doorstep of getting Test status, had been unlucky at least on two occasions, against Sri Lanka and India.

The outback town of Albury provided a pitch that kept low and had variable bounce. After an embarrassing batting display, Houghton just asked his men for one thing. "There are about 8000 people out here who still need some entertainment and the only way we can entertain is to make this game go as long as possible," he said.

Brandes got Gooch first ball: a low-inswinging yorker beat England's best batsman for pace and hit the pads. Brandes had been erratic throughout the tournament, but some work with John Traicos in the nets to improve on his accuracy allowed him to grow in confidence. The momentum was Zimbabwe's now. Brandes followed that with two more wickets in quick succession. Soon afterwards, he got past the defence of his best friend, Graeme Hick, whom he had warned only the last evening: "Good luck tomorrow, but I think you'll be my bunny."

Houghton bowled Brandes through and he responded without complaint even if it meant bending his back under the uncompromising sun. "David was outstanding as captain that day," recalls John Traicos, one of the weatherbeaten veterans. His men responded and the runs were drying up even as Neil Fairbrother and Alec Stewart forged a partnership. Zimbabwe knew that it was just a matter of a wicket. Ali Shah got the prized wicket of Stewart, breaking the 52-run stand, and Butchart got two more. England needed 23 off the last three overs which became 10 off the last, with the final pair of Gladstone Small and Phil Tuffnell at the crease.

Houghton asked his bowler, Malcolm Jarvis, just one thing - bowl to a length. An obedient Jarvis came up with a slower one first ball and Small, already committed, gave an easy catch. Zimbabwe were victors by nine runs, and Boycott slipped out of the commentary room on cat's feet.
Nagraj Gollapudi

Amazing grace denies the Kiwis

Mark Waugh was in one of those zones where everything he tried came off © Getty Images

Mark Waugh's third hundred of the 1996 tournament - which equalled the record for most hundreds in a single edition of the event - was his finest by some distance. Asked to make the second-highest score to win a World Cup match, under below-par lights and on an outfield slowed by a damp sea mist, Waugh helped whisk Australia past New Zealand's imposing total of 286.

Clearly prospering in his role as an opener in the limited-overs game, Waugh hit 110 in 112 balls to follow hundreds in the group games against Kenya and India. It was one of the coolest, breeziest hundreds ever, and you'd be hard-pressed to pick a better hundred in a one-day chase. His batting was unfussy and easy on the eye, and the clinical manner in which he collected his runs and set up the finish for his lower-order team-mates underlined the professionalism of that Australian side.

Perhaps more than the shots was the rate at which he scored his runs. Many people in the stands didn't realize Waugh had reached his fifty; they only saw that the man had glided his way to the landmark when the electronic scoreboard flashed it. In just about two-and-a-half hours of nimble-footed driving and flicking, mixed with two big sixes, Waugh showcased his easy elegance. The target of 287 was a daunting one, but Waugh batted beautifully to make a complete mockery of it.

His partnership with elder twin Steve (59 not out) was enough for the six-wicket win and watching the siblings pinch ones and twos like cricket's version of [Michael] Jordan and [Scottie] Pippen was a treat. The capacity crowd of 42,000 was treated to a great one-day international. You had to sympathise with Chris Harris, whose never-say-die 130 - he hammered everything that came his way, especially Waugh's offbreaks - was another champion effort. Australia were run closer than anybody thought possible, but with Waugh batting like that, New Zealand didn't stand a chance.
Jamie Alter

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