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Was the 1999 World Cup final Pakistan's most painful defeat in a World Cup?

Saj

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I remember not being able to sleep the night before the 1999 World Cup final, I was that excited.

We had a house full and the atmosphere was electric. Hopes were high as Pakistan had been excellent in large parts of the tournament and had so many matchwinners in the line-up.

However what transpired was painful, embarassing and frankly difficult to stomach.

I remember the match being over literally in a few hours and the day being ruined.

It took me a long time to get over that defeat and it still hurts !

Do you think that defeat in the 1999 World Cup final is the most painful defeat ever for Pakistan at the world cup?
 
Of course. I was so confident that we would win, couldn't believe what was happening.
 
I think that defeat to Ireland was more painful but India lost on the same day to Bangladesh so it didnt hurt that much
 
How old were you in 1999? Genuine question.

8. However if I were older, maybe I would say it was more difficult to take than Mohali, but World Cup SF in India vs. India is just too much.
 
1999 hurt more than any other defeat.

It was the first WC I followed and was so excited that we reached the final. Imagine being a 10 year old kid and your team playing another final after winning the WC just 7 years ago, and on the day of the match they didn't even look like playing.

Still clearly remember 132 all out , was too depressed to even watch the second innings
 
Depends how you look at it

Mohali hurts the most

1999 hurts in an other way becuase we all know what was rife in the team at the time
 
8. However if I were older, maybe I would say it was more difficult to take than Mohali, but World Cup SF in India vs. India is just too much.

Yeah makes sense. Pak was fav amongst all.. Well most cricket pundist, but the way we rolled in a wc final was really heart-breaking.
 
never watched cricket in 99, but for me the most heartbreaking loss was the 2007 world t20 final
 
Regarding the 2011 SF, I have never watched that match again in video highlights after that day of defeat!
 
Yeah makes sense. Pak was fav amongst all.. Well most cricket pundist, but the way we rolled in a wc final was really heart-breaking.

and guess what we all Pakistanis were so happy that we are going to face australia in final instead of that hot south african team which was better than aussies
 
Was too young to remember anything, for me the 2007 World cup game we lost to Ireland was painful(teared up a bit) and then losing the world twenty20 final to India sucked the most, we came so close and then Misbah blew it away.

Mohali doesn't hurt me, I didn't expect Pakistan to win the world cup on Indian soil or beat India in their backyard, I was content with us reaching the semis, I would be just as content if we manage to reach the semis in this world cup.
 
and guess what we all Pakistanis were so happy that we are going to face australia in final instead of that hot south african team which was better than aussies

Yeah when semifinal got tied and Australia went through I was jumping up and down. Lol in hindsight I wish South Africa had went through.
 
I didn't watch the 1999 World Cup. Were Pakistan's wickets falling to genuinely hostile bowling by the Australians, or was there indeed something fishy going on?
 
and guess what we all Pakistanis were so happy that we are going to face australia in final instead of that hot south african team which was better than aussies

Yeah I remember Klusener was a butcher with a bat in that WC.

He used to look so menacing, expressionless face, cold eyes, two fingers taped together. Dangerous dangerous player.

But at the end of the day he was a Saffer, and did what Saffers do best.
 
I didn't watch the 1999 World Cup. Were Pakistan's wickets falling to genuinely hostile bowling by the Australians, or was there indeed something fishy going on?

forget everything else the biggest fishy thing was Wasim selected to bat first on that wicket! Many people were in shock after that decision of Wasim including experts and analysts and his own team mates
 
Yeah when semifinal got tied and Australia went through I was jumping up and down. Lol in hindsight I wish South Africa had went through.

Yeah I remember Klusener was a butcher with a bat in that WC.

He used to look so menacing, expressionless face, cold eyes, two fingers taped together. Dangerous dangerous player.

But at the end of the day he was a Saffer, and did what Saffers do best.

I wish we had faced saffers in final lol but than again to be honest that whole final looked fishy to me so we might have lost it to them too
 
Mohail and the defeat to Ireland hurt more.

I seem to re-call our match against Zimbabwe being washed out at the 2003 WC as being almost equally as painful since it felt like a horrible defeat ....
 
forget everything else the biggest fishy thing was Wasim selected to bat first on that wicket! Many people were in shock after that decision of Wasim including experts and analysts and his own team mates

I thought nothing much was wrong with wicket. It was a good dry wicket.
 
Mohali hurt more because I was too young in '99. However, looking backing on it, '99 was still the best side we've put out in a WC and we really should've had a second WC win in '99.
 
I thought nothing much was wrong with wicket. It was a good dry wicket.

Some players in that 11 were not happy with Wasim decision but than again Wasim defend his decision by saying that we were not very good at chasing so i wanted to bat first and play with our strength.

btw there are reasons that Pak team of mid to late 90s underachieved
 
I was too young then but I do recall the excitement surrounding the team, England literally turned into Pakistan for the WC tournament. Green Flags everywhere and strong support at most of the games. Most of my family and friends never recovered so well from that loss, were completely devastated. Personally I found the loss to Ireland painful, was playing cricket in the park that day and a mate said he just came from the chippy to find that pak were 5 down already :facepalm:, Mohali got me all emotional but the loss which hurt the most was during the 2007 T20 WC when Misbah played the scoop lol I genuinely thought he hit it for 4 or 6 and started to celebrate until it landed in sreesanths hands :))) :))) man that hurt so much, I felt better though after beating up some Indians with my friends in School that were rubbing the loss in my face
 
Some players in that 11 were not happy with Wasim decision but than again Wasim defend his decision by saying that we were not very good at chasing so i wanted to bat first and play with our strength.

btw there are reasons that Pak team of mid to late 90s underachieved

We failed to chase a very modest sized total against bang and India, I wouldn't have backed us to chase anything over 50 in the WC final. If he had elected to field first I would have gotten very suspicious. It was a right decision IMO to bat first but execution was wrong. If waugh hadn't pulled that Wasti catch we would have posted a decent total IMO. He was good in tuk tuking.
 
87 World Cup for some of the old timers also as that match was of course being played in Pakistan.
 
never watched cricket in 99, but for me the most heartbreaking loss was the 2007 world t20 final

Yes it was extremely hard to take. The atmosphere in school next day was incredibly grim.
 
87 World Cup for some of the old timers also as that match was of course being played in Pakistan.

Imran Khan mentioned it as the most heartbreaking world cup loss for him, in front of his hometown and it was his last game(before he returned).
 
1999 definitely ranks up there as one of the worst defeats. Its just because we had an extremely strong team....probably the strongest Pak XI the country has ever fielded. The passion for the sport was also at its peak back then, largely due to the star power. None it was artificially hyped up like they do these with "Takras" and whatnot. There was no need for such gimmicks back then. It was true love.

Since then, much of that passion has faded as one by one those stars departed the game.

For me, Mohali doesn't rank that high. We lost to a stronger team. We were already very lucky to have reached Semi-Finals and were punching above our weight.
 
Yes 99 was the worst. We played excellent cricket upto then.

As a 14 year old it was an extremely depressing day and only a World Cup triumph can help to partially heal the wound.
 
To this day, I don't understand how anyone can blame Klusener for the semifinal defeat.

What was his fault? It was Donald who had the greatest brain-**** any human being can ever have.
 
Imran Khan mentioned it as the most heartbreaking world cup loss for him, in front of his hometown and it was his last game(before he returned).

Imran was at peak of his bowling took 17 wickets in 6 matches at average of 13 (including 3 wickets in semi final) Qadir was also bowling beautifully although Wasim was not the Wasim you have seen in 92 but Salim Malik was in good form
 
To this day, I don't understand how anyone can blame Klusener for the semifinal defeat.

What was his fault? It was Donald who had the greatest brain-**** any human being can ever have.

4 balls left one run needed. Why run for a risky single?
 
4 balls left one run needed. Why run for a risky single?

It was a clear single. Scores were level.

Should he have risked? What if he would have been dismissed the next ball? The whole world would have maligned him, with so many conspiracy theories cooking up over why he refused to take the run.

Hindsight is indeed a luxury.

At best, you can say that he was 15-20% at fault which still clearly makes Donald the culprit, who was ball-watching.
 
To this day, I don't understand how anyone can blame Klusener for the semifinal defeat.

What was his fault? It was Donald who had the greatest brain-**** any human being can ever have.

There was never a run there. With two more balls left why would you go for a suicidal run?
 
There was never a run there. With two more balls left why would you go for a suicidal run?

In my opinion, it wasn't suicidal. Klusener made his ground and Donald who was such a superb athlete would have done the same had he been alert.

In these situations, you have to be switched on and he was ball-watching. Had Klusener been dismissed the next ball, he would have been heavily criticized.

A lose-lose situation for him really, but since he was in charge of taking SA home, he has had to carry the load of that choke which I think is unfair.
 
That is the most gun side we could have ever put on the Cricket field. The most talented and gifted Pakistani side ever with all players at their peak. I doubt we can ever put a side like this ever again on the field.
 
In my opinion, it wasn't suicidal. Klusener made his ground and Donald who was such a superb athlete would have done the same had he been alert.

In these situations, you have to be switched on and he was ball-watching. Had Klusener been dismissed the next ball, he would have been heavily criticized.

A lose-lose situation for him really, but since he was in charge of taking SA home, he has had to carry the load of that choke which I think is unfair.

Klusenar was in such destructive form, he should have backed him self to smash the remaining deliveries for 4. There was no need to take any single there. It was a classic proteas choke.
 
In my opinion, it wasn't suicidal. Klusener made his ground and Donald who was such a superb athlete would have done the same had he been alert.

In these situations, you have to be switched on and he was ball-watching. Had Klusener been dismissed the next ball, he would have been heavily criticized.

A lose-lose situation for him really, but since he was in charge of taking SA home, he has had to carry the load of that choke which I think is unfair.
There was never a single there. If you listen to the comentry, commentators were saying the same thing. The ball barely passed the pitch. The way klusener was playing in the tourney(had been dismissed just once in while tourney)... There was a strong chance he would have whacked next ball to boundary.
 
8. However if I were older, maybe I would say it was more difficult to take than Mohali, but World Cup SF in India vs. India is just too much.

This. Beating India in India, and throwing out of WC, and Sachin retiring without WC. This would have hurt India for decades.it would have been too much for Indian to bare this. Pakistani players didn’t realize how big opportunity they have missed by dropping those catches. They could have survived rest of their lives just talking about this game and WC.
 
Mohali didn't hurt in defeat alone but what pissess me off is the fact that the mohaling thing was allowed to get away with it not just on that instance but many instances beyond that as well.
 
^ I understand that, but I do think Donald would have made his ground because Klusener did as well but he was simply ball-watching.

Klusener can be criticized for not communicating to him though, looks like Donald was still dazed about those two cracking boundaries prior to the delivery. He was definitely caught off-guard, but you can't switch off in these moments.
 
This. Beating India in India, and throwing out of WC, and Sachin retiring without WC. This would have hurt India for decades.it would have been too much for Indian to bare this. Pakistani players didn’t realize how big opportunity they have missed by dropping those catches. They could have survived rest of their lives just talking about this game and WC.

Everything was perfectly positioned for us to end the streak. We will never have a more perfect opportunity.

The most frustrating thing was that in spite of the dropped catches, a target of 260 odd was very achievable had we kept our heads. Our batting in the middle overs 15-35 was just ridiculous.
 
Mark Nicholas on Cricinfo wrote article on all worldcups. And for 1999, he said "what were you thinking Wasim??" Referencing to Wasim


"Wasim Akram's legend took a thumping in London three years later, when on a damp and grey morning, after a delay to the start of play, he won the toss and chose to bat. Wasim, honestly! What were you thinking? Look up to the sky at Lord's, as well as down to the pitch, when you win the toss. Mind you, he could have looked any place and come to the same obvious conclusion. But he didn't. So Australia won the first of three World Cups on the bounce. Thanks, Herschelle (remember the crucial dropped catch in the Super Sixes at Headingley?); thanks AD and Lance (remember the last over of the semi-final at Edgbaston?); and thanks Waz. Mind you, Shane Warne deserved this trophy on his CV. He turned that epic semi-final on its head."
 
That is the most gun side we could have ever put on the Cricket field. The most talented and gifted Pakistani side ever with all players at their peak. I doubt we can ever put a side like this ever again on the field.

I disagree - Salim Malik, Ijaz Ahmed were past their peak whilst Inzy and MoYo were still relatively inconsistent during those years and afridi was always afridi. The only world class batsman we had was Saeed Anwar. Still never understood why wajahatullah wasti was in the team ...

Our bowling was world class though with Wasim, Akhtar, razzaq (when he used to bowl in the 90's), saqlain and azhar mahmood
 
I was 14 then. And yes, that was the most painful to take. Worst thing was, the pain started only halfway through our innings. I remember even when our bowlers came out to bowl I had hope... but Gilchrist put that way very very quickly.

It's the worst defeat I can remember. Second worst is '07 T20WC. Mohali for some reason didn't feel that bad to me! Even the '96 QF was worse than Mohali.
 
^ I understand that, but I do think Donald would have made his ground because Klusener did as well but he was simply ball-watching.

Klusener can be criticized for not communicating to him though, looks like Donald was still dazed about those two cracking boundaries prior to the delivery. He was definitely caught off-guard, but you can't switch off in these moments.

Prior to runout delivery there was another where Donald almost got runout. He set off and was sent back by klusener after a mix up. It was a suicidal run as well. After the mentioned incident it was very stupid of Klusener to run for such a single. Donald knew this wasn't a run and that why he didn't run. I agree he was ball watching but he probably knew klusener didn't time it and it was going to midon who very close to the stumps.
 
I disagree - Salim Malik, Ijaz Ahmed were past their peak whilst Inzy and MoYo were still relatively inconsistent during those years and afridi was always afridi. The only world class batsman we had was Saeed Anwar. Still never understood why wajahatullah wasti was in the team ...

Our bowling was world class though with Wasim, Akhtar, razzaq (when he used to bowl in the 90's), saqlain and azhar mahmood


Wasti was there to take shine off to he new ball. He was tuk tuk master.
 
For me 1999 Final.
My first year in Toronto. Semi finals and Final were shown direct in desi movie theaters. Went in with such great expectations, we did beat Australia quite easily in round matches and what a heart break it was in the end.
 
Yup I would say '99 WC Final was the most painful loss.

2011 VS India was bad but at the end of the day we were beaten by a stronger team in their backyard.

Against Australia in '99 we had a team of match winners who completely folded under pressure when it mattered. It was heart breaking and very moral crushing.

Obviously - Pak v Ireland in '07 also gets a notable mention of course.
 
I'd say the 2007 World T20 Final was most hurtful followed by the 2011 World Cup Semi Final.
 
The two World Cup defeats in 2007 was utterly destroying. The Ireland defeat and losing to India in the T20 WC final in the last over was very deflating as a fan.

Mohali defeat is overrated, I thought we had overachieved by reaching the semi-finals and it seemed like destiny that India would win it. Plus we were coming off the spot-fixing scandal and the two disastrous tours of Australia and England so expectations were so low for me anyway.

1999 World Cup final - Wasim should've known better. He's played county cricket and he knows what Lords is like on an overcast May morning.

1996 World Cup QF defeat to India - that was inexcusable. We should have beaten India period, we were at our peak in terms of the strength of our ODI team. We never should have conceded 287 (IIRC Ajay Jadeja went berserk at the end of the IND innings with something like 40 runs off Waqar's final two overs - another reason why I still have a sore spot for Waqar). Our middle-order then choked after a fantastic start by our openers.

And the 2003 World Cup was just one big disappointment. Terrible captaincy by Waqar, over the hill players and infighting for months prior to the tournament meant we were heading for disaster. It all went downhill after THAT Andrew Symonds innings (who seemed to reincarnate himself as Bradman every time he played us).
 
Wasti was there to take shine off to he new ball. He was tuk tuk master.

Just today they were showing the extended highlights of the game on Star Sports.

It was really painful. Because we were supposedly the favorites.

We were the better side all round, and we made an underconfident Aussie side into World beaters for the next 8 years.

It was that day. Right after Saeed Anwar got out after hitting 3 blistering boundaries.

The sad part is, the pitch was an absolute beauty to bat on.

There was no swing except the Wajahat ullah Wasti ball.

Anwar was stroking it around nicely.

And then Ijaz came and was stroking the balll around himself.

We were 75-2 in 20 odd overs with Razzaq and Ijaz negotiating most of the new ball

Paul Reiffel was a really average bowler that was being tonked around by Ejaz.

To make matters worse, Mcgrath dropped a sitter of Abdur Razzaq

Yet even from that position we all got out like a pack of cards.

Shane warne was at his peak, but besides that if we had negotiated Warne, we could've put up a decent score.

I remember it being one sided. But just today I watched the match, first 25 overs we were comfortable in the game. I can't believe we lost the plot from there.
 
Too much pain:

96 QF
99 Final
03 Centurion
07 Ireland
11 Mohali

If I had to pick one.... I think 03 Centurion was hard to take. I never witnessed Pakistan going out in the first stage of the world cup before, that too with it being India who essentially knocked us out.
 
The 1999 world cup final was over way before it started so it didn't hurt as much, but Mohali hurts a lot more. It was a close game and one we should have won.
 
Yes it was extremely hard to take. The atmosphere in school next day was incredibly grim.

That was 03 for me. I was 14 and the build up in school was immense. We would play Pakistan vs India between ourselves for weeks before the game. When we lost, I remember thinking school would be unbearable on Monday. Going into school to see Indians with their flags and indian shirts on underneath their uniform and looking at my Pakistani mates, we didn't even say anything to each other. Just looked at each other, shaked our heads, looked down and got on with the day.
 
Mohali defeat I got over within 2 days

Maybe it hurts the younger lot here but although it was bitterly diasapointing to lose such a match I wasn't hurt compared to the 1999 WC final defeat though luckily for me that day I was forced to go to work so I missed the carnage.

However for me the 1996 quarter final defeat was the most painful by far, not just when it occurred but also took months to get over that not only the realisation we we're not champions any more but lost the crown by losing to our most bitter rivals, that too in a home tournament, def were good enough to defend it.
 
Easily.

That was our strongest team we've had in ODI's.

Hurt doubly more because I was in Aus and it was just a little too much to take.
 
In the 2003 WC squad, too many players were playing past their prime. It was clear that that team could not compete with the new generation of other players and that the previous super stars were too washed up to repeat the previous glories. Waqar if he was not captain would not have made the side.
 
Gosh, I remember celebrating when McGrath dropped Razzaq and thinking it would be our day. How wrong I was.
 
I didn't watch the 1999 World Cup. Were Pakistan's wickets falling to genuinely hostile bowling by the Australians, or was there indeed something fishy going on?

If there was a match that got fixed with less doubt than k.akmals Drop-Gate test, it was the 99 final. If our players were paid more, these thigs would never arise in the first place. My grandfather still laments this game today.
 
No doubt about it. We had to hear bloody firework all year which people bought to celebrate Pakistan World Cup win. Bloody Aussies.
 
Too young for the '99 Final so has to be the '07 WCT20. Mohali wasn't very painful since I was never expecting us to win before it started and India's start with Sehwag went according to the script; definitely disappointing after coming back so well, though. '07 was just too much.
 
Just today they were showing the extended highlights of the game on Star Sports.

It was really painful. Because we were supposedly the favorites.

We were the better side all round, and we made an underconfident Aussie side into World beaters for the next 8 years.

It was that day. Right after Saeed Anwar got out after hitting 3 blistering boundaries.

The sad part is, the pitch was an absolute beauty to bat on.

There was no swing except the Wajahat ullah Wasti ball.

Anwar was stroking it around nicely.

And then Ijaz came and was stroking the balll around himself.

We were 75-2 in 20 odd overs with Razzaq and Ijaz negotiating most of the new ball

Paul Reiffel was a really average bowler that was being tonked around by Ejaz.

To make matters worse, Mcgrath dropped a sitter of Abdur Razzaq

Yet even from that position we all got out like a pack of cards.

Shane warne was at his peak, but besides that if we had negotiated Warne, we could've put up a decent score.

I remember it being one sided. But just today I watched the match, first 25 overs we were comfortable in the game. I can't believe we lost the plot from there.

we should have never left Yousuf out. Playing Afridi instead of yousuf was criminal.
 
The 1999 world cup final was over way before it started so it didn't hurt as much, but Mohali hurts a lot more. It was a close game and one we should have won.

I disagree. Watch the highlights, we were in the game 25 overs in. Aussies were nervous, Mcgrath even dropped Razzaq's catch.

We let a team take us down very easily, they were nervous wrecks the Aussies in that final.

I guess the game against SA took too much out of them.

Somewhere in between we were complacent in that final that is for sure.
 
2003 WC was the first time I remember watching an Indo-Pak game. I was also on holiday in Pak at the time and the whole village was at my uncles house watching the game. After Anwars century I remember everyone was confident but I remember the despondency and shock after we lost. Also WT20 2007 final I thought Misbah had won us it then saw sreesanth catch it and was absolutely distraught I was 13 at that time. And then Mohali while I expected India to beat us before the game. But after all the Tendulkar drops And that we actually restricted India to a reachable total . And the bizarre and pathetic batting by Misbah and YK and co the way we Imploded was heartbreaking.


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1999 I don't personally remember but my dad always talks about how it was fixed


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2003 WC was the first time I remember watching an Indo-Pak game. I was also on holiday in Pak at the time and the whole village was at my uncles house watching the game. After Anwars century I remember everyone was confident but I remember the despondency and shock after we lost. Also WT20 2007 final I thought Misbah had won us it then saw sreesanth catch it and was absolutely distraught I was 13 at that time. And then Mohali while I expected India to beat us before the game. But after all the Tendulkar drops And that we actually restricted India to a reachable total . And the bizarre and pathetic batting by Misbah and YK and co the way we Imploded was heartbreaking.

The post in this thread have the unintended effect of making us Indians feel like sadists lol.
 
We love to be melodramatic and emotional about everything, but clearly we weren't responsible for the rise of Australia as the dominant force in world cricket. Unlike us, they don't linger on individuals wins/losses for too long.

They were a team on the rise - The likes of McGrath, Ponting, Warne and Gilchrist were entering their prime years - three all-time great cricketers. Then you had guys like Hayden, Langer, Martyn, Symonds, Lee etc. joining the the team soon.

Losing that final wouldn't have changed anything; they would still have coasted in 2003 and 2007, as well as be invincible till 2007 in all formats.

Their rise also had to do with other teams losing their best players and not finding apt replacements, the likes of Wasim, Waqar, Saeed Anwar were in the twilight of their careers, England were out of sorts, South Africa were too dependent on Kallis and Pollock who never showed up against Australia, and New Zealand were going through a fruitless era. West Indies were a one machine just like Sri Lanka.

India were the only team to challenge them in that era because of Tendulkar and Dravid and later on England when they rose in world cricket around 2004-2005.
 
Another point to consider is the way both teams won their respective semifinals. We coasted against New Zealand from ball one, but Australia had to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat, which gave them the momentum and impetus to demolish us in the final.

They had a lot more intensity and desire, while we had it easy. Generally, I think teams that win hotly contested semifinals tend to win the finals more often.
 
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