This was the first World Cup I fully followed as a child. There seems to be a romantic, nostalgic view of both the 1996 and the 1999 World Cups here on Pakpassion and some wishful thinking in terms of "What could've been"
But I think it's important to give some context to that tournament. Post the 96/97 triseries in Australia, Pakistan had an extremely mediocre 20 months in ODI cricket.
Captaincy was an issue and Aamir Sohail did not inspire.
The workloads had caused injuries to bowlers and Waqar's form in particular fell off a cliff from late 97 onwards. Here is their record in the period.
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As you can see, Pakistan did not have a positive W/L against any of the top 8 sides despite bullying BD and Zimbabwe.
Now, let's look at the period after that till the eve of the world cup.
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What is immediately noticeable in this period is that Pakistan had absolutely bullied India in this period. This, imo is why many started rating Pakistan highly going into the World Cup. I'm sure a lot of Pakistani fans had great eexpectations after that manhandling of India over 8 months. Similarly, Indian fans lived through that period have nightmares of that time.
But look a little closer and you'll see that Tendulkar missed around 8 of those matches, both Tendu and Azhar had missed around 2-3, the bowling attack of Sri and Prasad were at their worst ( they had insane workloads over the previous 3 years) and then of course there were more sinister reasons like Azhar admitting that the India-Pakistan encounter in Jaipur was fixed.
Not only that, apart from India, Pakistan's record against the other sides is once again not particularly impressive .
Let's once again look at the record post the C&U triseries till the World Cup eve but let's see how it stands vis a vis other top 8 sides
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As you can see, despite the last 8 months of bullying India, Pakistans ODI record in that period is better than NZ alone. RSA were a monster side that were far and away the best ODI team and Australia were the best of the rest.
Having said that, Pakistan being rated as the 2nd favourites after SA was not undeserved in my opinion.
The breakneck speed offered by Akhtar, the mystery of Saqlain who was the best ODI bowler of the 90's, the left arm swing and death hitting of Wasim, peak Azhar Mahmood of 1999 who was quick and could bat and was better than Waqar purely as a bowler at that point, Moin Khan's death hitting form(was hitting sixes with ease off the likes of Flintoff before WC) and then of course a monster ODI opener in Anwar and a Mad Hatter in Afridi.
No team captured the imagination like Pakistan did. So, while results did not justify their rating as 2nd favourites, they were a side on a roll with exciting, X factor players and variety.
But only teams who have had consistent results and can withstand pressure really do well in long tournaments like the World Cup. Pakistan had neither consistent results(from the images above) nor could they really withstand pressure.
Pakistan's squad backups were not good enough over the course of 10 matches. There were members of that squad who were complete liabilities especially in England
1. Saleem Malik
He was rubbish in ODIs at that point. Barely played for nearly 2 years before the tournament and flopped every single time. The most questionable selection in the 15
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That's how pathetic his form was. Completely different from the great ODI player ge was in the 80's
2. Wajahatullah Wasti
This was Wajahats career before the World Cup.
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Wasim claimed that Wajahat was needed to counter early summer English conditions at the World Cup)
3. Afridi
Wouldn't have been the worst selection for a World Cup in Asia considering he was giving rapid starts in the matches right before and he was the 6th bowling option. Unfortunately, he was bound to be a complete flop against that Dukes ball and his bowling was not particularly good either.
4. Waqar
Waqar was in the worst form of his life and looked completely done in int'l cricket. This was Waqar's form or lack thereof
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He was often injured often, got smashed around by Zimbsbwe even and after a dreadful tour of India where he averaged 76 with the ball, he was dropped for the ODIs and Azhar bowled like a demon and took his chance and that was in addition to his batting.
Waqar didnt deserve to be in the squad at all. Pakistan had to bowl the same 4 seamers throughout the tournament and at times it felt like they needed to rotate in another seamer in the Super sixes when shoaib was wayward etc.
5. Mushtaq Ahmed
Had things gone well with Saqi, it wouldn't have mattered but since Saqi didnt have the best world cup, it was clear Pakistan needed a better alternative. Mushtaq had barely played in a while and Arshad Khan had actually been in good form when he got chances
6. Saqlain
Might seem like nitpicking but I believe Saqlain had ust started to decline at the time. For a bloke who had averaged in teens for the previous 3 years in ODIS, he was not even the best spinner in the tournament and he was found wanting in the super six, SF etc. He had been Pakistans biggest match winner for 3 years but couldn't step up when it mattered.
7. Ijaz Ahmed
I've heard many posters, including [MENTION=53290]Markhor[/MENTION] claim that Ijaz was past it . This could not be further from the truth.
Since Ijaz Ahmed came back to the Pakistan ODI side in 1994, he was Pakistans 2nd best batsman after Saeed Anwar. They were the only 2 batsmen to average 40+ and strike at 80+ in the period.
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Whether it was the conditions, a sudden loss of form with his real age catching up, randomly being replaced by Razzaq at 3 or more sinister reasons involving bookies/casinos, Ijaz's lack of impact hit Pakistan massively during the tournament and the batting suffered.
As you can see, atleast 5 members of the squad were awful selections and meant that Pakistan did not have depth in the squad.
Add to that the lack of consistency in results in previous years, it means that Pakistan were not clear favourites before the tournament.
Additionally, the relative underperformance of Saqi and Ijaz's shocker of a tournament, meant that even during the tournament, Pakistan had shown no signs that they were any better than OZ/SA to be worthy champions.
Good summary Nikhil. I'd add a few points to that.
Nathan Leamon and Ben Jones of CricViz noted in their recent book Hitting Against the Spin that the three best predictors of a World Cup winning team are a) batting strength, b) their win record in the previous two years, and c) experience.
Pakistan ranked amongst the best in terms of batting strength and experience in 1999, but ranked mid-table for their winning record which you've covered.
I'd suggest our batting strength was somewhat misleading. Our readiness to face the moving Dukes ball wasn't going to be exposed in Sharjah or Asia on flat wickets. But in friendlier seam conditions our batsmen were very inconsistent as shown by Pakistan winning 63 and losing 66 ODIs away in AUS, SAF, ENG, NZL and WI in the 90s.
I hear your point about Ijaz who was a key performer in the mid-90s. While he could be very destructive in Asia, and a rare Pakistani batter to perform in Australia - he averaged 33 after his famous 139 in Lahore till the end of his career. That average drops further to 22 overseas, so not particularly reliable.
That meant a heavy reliance on Saeed Anwar, Inzamam (a poor WC performer) and lower order slugging from Moin and Wasim to produce competitive totals. When they didn't perform, the likes of Wasti, Afridi, Razzaq and a geriatric Salim weren't good enough to pick up the slack. Pakistan had only 2 batters who averaged above 35 in 99, while Australia had 5 so the burden of runscoring was more evenly shared.
Granted against South Africa we were undone by a Lance Klusener special - but no team that loses 4 WC matches can argue they were hard done.
