The Summer of Acrimony England v Pakistan 1992

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This is the TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

We are gonna look back to a famous series between Pakistan and England.

It was played in 1992. I don't know whether to give out the result. You probably know it if you know your cricket history. Well, I'll keep you on tenterhooks for a while. Anyway, Pakistan came to England in 1992. They hadn't played each other for 5 years in Test cricket. And the last time they played each other, there was a lot of acrimony. It was an 8— they played 8 Tests in 1990— 1987, I should say. Pakistan won the series In England, there was a bit of controversy about some of the umpiring. Pakistan won the series. Of course, then there was a lot of controversy about the umpiring in in Pakistan with the whole Shakarana incident where you saw Mike Gatting wagging his finger at Shakarana and Shakarana holding up play while he thought that England were changing the field, and then the play didn't resume on the next day. So there was a lot of kind of acrimony in a way, or little. Surface tension building into 1992. And the 2 teams had met in the World Cup final as well earlier that year in Australia, which Pakistan won dramatically. They just about qualified for the knockout stages. They beat England, who'd gone very well in the group stages and won nearly all their games. So there was that sort of context to it as well. It was a full Pakistan tour. So it's not like these days where you turn up for 3 Test matches or you come here for 5 white ball games or 6 white ball games or whatever. Pakistan were here for the summer. So their first game was on 3rd of May in Arundel against the Duchess of Norfolk's XI, a game that they won. And their last match, I think, was against the World XI right at the end of the tour in late August. And it was a 5-test match series. There was also 5 one-dayers. And the 5 one-dayers weren't together in those days. There was a couple at the start and 3 at the end. And one of them caused an enormous amount of controversy, as we are going to discover. Jonathan Agnew, who remembers reporting and commentating on that series, is here. Atif Nawaz, who remembers— first memories really of Pakistan cricket. And a man who's right at the center of it, Ramiz Raja, who played in the series, played in all 5 Test matches. So, um, so where do we start? Let's— well, let's start at the start of the series really, and, and start of the tour. And Ramiz, if you can take your mind back to it, what What was kind of like the feeling for Pakistan coming to England in 1992?

Well, we had just beaten England in the World Cup finals, so we were very confident that we can do it again. And this time the challenge was a little different. Obviously it was Test match cricket, but before the Test series, you know, there was this deadly bitter challenge that if we beat, um, Counties, and I think we needed 12 wins out of 17 to win the Tetley-Bitter Challenge, which was £50,000, that we'll be the first team to do that. I think previously it was Australia who had toured England. They didn't do that. So we used to feel a proper Test match team in every county match. And in those days, you know, there would be 3-day games, not 4-day first-class games. And yet we won that Tetley-Bitter. And so we were feeling really, really good. And then we had quality bowling, I think, in Test match cricket. you need quality bowling, and we had 2 of the very best in Wasim and Waqar. Then we had Mushy. So it was a lethal combination, 3 options to pick up wickets, and then the reversing to go with it at 100 miles an hour. And even though England had a fantastic team, you know, established names and playing at home, yet we somehow felt confident that we'll— we could pull it off.

What do you remember about that series, the start of it?

It was the ugliest, most hostile series that I've ever covered. Resentment, real deep resentment, suspicion, thoughts of strong thoughts of cheating, ball tampering. This is of course the issue with Mike Gatting and Shakur Rana in 1987 that hit the headlines. Losing the World Cup final in Melbourne where Wasim came on at a vital late-ish part in the game and swung the ball all over the place. Again, fingers pointed at that. He can't have done that without scratching surfaces. Imran Khan had come out the year before and admitted that he had once used a bottle top to scrape the side of a ball. So England had no real idea about reverse swing in those days. And I was telling Ram a minute ago, we first encountered Waqar when we were playing for Leicestershire against Surrey, where he was playing his first season. And we'd heard a bit about this stuff. And there was a wonderful photograph on the back page of the Daily Telegraph the day after the first day of that match involving Peter Willey, old friend of mine, who was very professional, Peter. And he would always watch when he was batting, the bowler walking back to his mark, which side of the ball he was shining it, where that shiny side would go, and so on. And we'd heard about this reverse swing, but there it was graphically, this photograph on the back page of Telegraph, Peter Woolley shouldering arms and his leg stump being ripped out of the ground. It had gone completely the other direction at about 100 miles an hour. So this is what was going on. And England had no idea about it. We had no bowlers who could do it. And therefore, The feeling was that it had to have been done through illicit means. And all these factors led to a concerted campaign probably by the British media to expose this, essentially tabloid-led but everyone was involved in it. A determination to prove that this had— that Pakistan were cheating us had to be done.

On the—

slightly on the other level as well, you had the Pakistanis had their own agenda in really trying to push the issue of neutral umpires. They had fallen out badly with David Constant on a previous tour. And there was definitely the agenda driven by Pakistan, just in world cricket actually, that there had to be neutral umpires. So you've got these 2 big things going on at the same time in the same series. And it led to some pretty awful scenes, meltdowns, you know, real issues with umpires and players, a ball mysteriously being changed in a One Day International with no reason given. Alan Lamb, a massive piece he wrote in the Daily Mirror explaining— the headline was, I've been writing about it, How Pakistan cheated cricket—that was the front page. That earned him a big fine. He alleged in there that Safraz Nawaz, the former Pakistan bowler who played at Northamptonshire with Lamy, Alan Lamb described what Safraz got up to on the field for Northamptonshire. Safraz threatened to sue him, and that only went away because Alan, what he said, admitted that he'd never actually seen Safraz do this. So that went away. But that was it. It was a— we talk about pressure cookers. This was unique in terms of the hostility, really personal feeling.

Racism?

Racism, yes. I suspect there was that sort of element to it, to trying to prove that Pakistan were doing this, were cheating. I suspect there was an element of that amongst the media reporting of it. And it's worth saying that apart from one Yes. Glimpse in the final Test match at the Oval of Akeeb Javed, uh, quite a firebrand of a young fast bowler then, really digging his nail into a ball. And Richie Benno commentating, saying the most bizarre thing— isn't it, isn't it strange what you see in the city late at night? Or something like that. You think, what is it, Richie? Look at it, you know. But that was the only thing that there was, despite that massive scrutiny. Telephoto lenses and everything else. The attempt by the British media to prove that ball tampering could only be done through cheating—that was the only incident that was ever seen.

Artif, were you aware of this as you were watching your first ever series and falling in love with Pakistan cricket?

Yeah, well, you sort of pick up on bits of it. I remember it vividly as my sort of first memory. You'd go off to school and you'd come home and you'd ask your mum, "What's the score? What's the score? What's the score?" It was it was that era before the internet where you relied on things like Cfax and and the newspaper. which you never normally cared about. But because there's this Test series happening, you wanna look at the back pages and see exactly who did what and these really lyrical descriptions of cricket players. And you've gotta understand, in '92, the Pakistan cricket team, they were like gods to their fans. They'd all of a sudden achieved something that was so remarkable. And you were told constantly about this achievement by people around you that, you know, this team has won a World Cup. They came back from out of nowhere. They were cornered tigers and so on and so forth. And there was just something about them. I mean, even in their sort of, you know, the bright green The lime green uniform. They look like cartoon characters to a kid, you know. So you're watching them and you're fully in, you know, engaged and engrossed and, as you say, in love with this side. This '92 tour for me will always be where that love turned into full-on infatuation. And there was an element of, you know, there's nefarious things happening, but you're not fully understanding. You're hearing something about ball tampering. You're hearing something about accusations. You're hearing, you know, you're watching this back and forth. I remember it made me really uncomfortable as a kid to watch Archibald Javed with umpire Roy Palmer, I think it was.

At Old Trafford.

And it was— I remember vividly feeling really uncomfortable, like, oh my God, are they going to— are they fighting? Like, what's happening? I remember he was bowling at Devon Malcolm. Too young to understand the concept of hostile bowling and things like that. Already drawn into the fabulous stroke play of, you know, Ramiz and Aamir Sahil at the top of the order. The classiness of Javed Miandad batting in helmets without grills and things like that. And then you got Wasim and Waqar who had a different kind of swagger. Now, my brother often tells me— he's got 15 years on me, my brother— that was very much a product of a swagger that had developed. It started from this sort of pre-colonial, this kind of like fitting-in mindset to like an expressing-yourself mindset. No, no, no. We're here. We have our own identity. And we want to express ourselves. And there were issues related to sort of racism or feeling like you were being put in a box and things like that. But this team was a symbol of great, enormous pride. And it sort of ripples through to this day. I mean, I meet people— My age and a little bit older, a little bit younger, who remember moments of that series so vividly you could you know they crystallized in your mind. It was wonderful. I I still have one of my prized possessions to this day, Simon, is a is a floppy England hat, and it's got TCCB written on it because this is pre ECB, and I imagine it's worth a few quid.

Test County Cricket Board. Yeah.

In those days, I I still hold on to that because I think it might be worth a few quid at some stage. But for me, it's the opposite of that. I know there was a lot going on, and historically I've been informed, and obviously. So you learn more as you go along. But at the time, it was a magical cricket series for me.

Rameez, do you recognize the context that Agus was talking about there?

Not at all. Because you see, we were brought up on, say, if the term is scratching the ball as a norm to survive on those dead pitches in Pakistan. So we considered this as an art and something that we thrived in because it was only available to us, the, the knowledge, you know, how to hold the ball. So my first, you know, I was reprimanded 3, 4 times by Imran how I was holding the ball in the field because you weren't supposed to hold it with your palm because it wet the, the dry side. And so I said, what is happening here? Because even my elder brother, he never talked about this because he played for 57 times for Pakistan, never ever shared, you know, whether the ball, uh, was being ripped apart, was being tampered with. There was no such thing in our dictionary because Imran Khan in a way was, was doing it. And so we thought, we thought was the, was the gospel because he was a genuine leader. And we felt that, you know, this is how we survived on those dead pitches. And that's why we were so good, uh, from fast bowling point of view on those, on those pitches in Pakistan. So this was huge news to me, at least, what was happening here, because we felt pretty okay. And certainly we were told that this is cheating. So it, it didn't go down well at all because we've been doing it for the last, whatever, 7, 8 years. And we felt it was fine because I remember New Zealand tried it. Uh, there was a bowler by the name of Pringle.

Pringle, yeah.

We didn't complain. He picked up 7 wickets in Faisalabad. And so, I mean, it was It was on. Yeah, I mean, if you are good enough to do it, you do it. But it was a matter of survival for most of us in Pakistan, you know. And we thought that it was genuine. It was all within the laws of the game.

But it wasn't.

What exactly though, Ramiz? What are we talking about here?

The ball tampering.

Yeah, but no, what exactly, you know, what are the details of that? You know, what happens?

What, with the ball?

Yeah.

So you keep one side—

I mean, now everyone does it. So they do it discreetly, but it's done. So you keep one side shiny, the other side as rough or as dry as possible. But then obviously you need a Waqar or a Wasim to fully use the conditions or, you know, use the old ball. And so I think England were a bit frustrated during that series also because According to them, the seam bowling or the way, you know, the English conditions hit the length and the ball will do the job should be enough for them to beat Pakistan. But we were different because we had faster bowlers who bowled a different line length. And in that series, we were better than them when it came to picking up wickets.

But there's a— okay, there's a difference, isn't there, between keeping one side of the ball dry and allowing the other side of the ball to go rough? And actually then actually doing something to the ball, isn't there, with your fingers or whatever, you know, the bottle top or whatever?

Well, we didn't use bottle tops, so it's just the natural way of, of making sure that the ball listens to you after, what, 30, 40 overs, whatever.

So one side rough, one side, one side dry?

Yeah, yeah. Which we— I mean, I say we, we didn't know anything about it. It was occasionally you get a ball that would swing the wrong way that you're expecting it. Um, it always surprised, you know, but that was not through reverse swing. Reverse swing was entirely new to English cricket before, before Waqar Younis arrived and was playing for Surrey. And Ram's right, you, you have to be a special type of bowler. You have to have a bit of a slingy action. You have to be quick. You have to bowl full length. Um, and I mean, the, the result of this series for England was Darren Gough, because he fitted that mould absolutely. He was the same, exactly the same sort of trajectory, if you like. to Wasim-ul-Waqar. And so that was— England suddenly started searching around for someone who could do it. Who was it going to be? Darren Gough, who played here, of course. And that was how it came about. But, you know, those were the suspicions that England had at the time. So there's this undercurrent throughout that whole series. Pakistan, yes, wanting neutral umpires. And I remember Atif mentioned the incident with Roy Palmer up at Old Trafford, and I interviewed Intikab Alam after that. He was the coach or the manager of the side, and I've known Intikab a long time. I played with him at Surrey, you know, nice guy. I interviewed him, and I've just written about it here, and he actually said that the English umpires were biased, and that got him into trouble, of course. But that was, that was from the management of the Pakistan team. So again, it's just, it just fanned the flames that were already burning. As far as the English media was concerned, it was like manna from heaven.

Let's get into the series. You talked actually about this, this tightly bitter challenge, winning £50,000, because that was quite a big incentive, wasn't it? £50,000. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we went for it. Decent amount of money. I was just looking at some of the— it was a good attempt though.

It was done for a reason, and that was to make those games competitive.

Yeah, really matter. Absolutely. So you won a one-day— I mean, there were some one-day games in those days before the tour got going. The Duchess of Norfolk, you beat Kent in a one-day match. You lost actually your first first-class match. You actually lost. Yeah, you were beaten at Worcester by 5 wickets. Then a victory against Glamorgan, a victory against Somerset. What did you want to say there, Andy Saltzman?

Just about the context of that Pakistan team as a Test match force coming into that series. Out of their previous 15 series, had only lost one. That's over, over 7 years. They had 3 drawn series of the West Indies in their peak years, 2 in Pakistan and 1 in West Indies. They were a fantastic team over a prolonged period of time, plus that One Day World Cup win earlier in, uh, in, in 1992. So they were a huge force in world cricket at the time. England had had a bit of an uptick after a terrible few years at the end of the 1980s, had a good home summer in 1990, drew with the West Indies in 1991, uh, won in New Zealand that winter and reached the final of that World Cup. So you had, uh, you know, one team that had been really good for a long time and England showing improvement after a A difficult few years.

Yeah. So getting into that series, you won— you lost the first 2 One Day Internationals, which, as I said, was a— you know, there were a couple of games at the start of the tour and then 3, bizarrely, at the end of the tour. It seems hard to believe now, doesn't it, the way it's all divvied up and parcelled up nicely? Um, you won some tour matches because you had that incentive.

Yeah.

Get to the first Test. The first Test at Edgbaston was an absolute belter. It really was. 446 for 4 from Pakistan. Played 459 for 7 from England.

That's it. That was it. Yeah, placid conditions. Absolutely. I still remember. Yeah, nothing happening. It's just getting some practice for the series.

The first day was entirely washed out, and at the end of day 2, Pakistan batting first were 3 for naught.

I'll tell you what though, one significant thing that happened there, I think that was the game where Inzamam-ul-Haq made his Test debut.

It was. Yeah. Inzi didn't have a great tour, actually didn't have a great series, had a great World Cup, but didn't really contribute a great deal.

So first test, actually quite a dull game, spoiled by weather. Both teams making over 400. I just had a note down.

What did you do? There's no complaint of ball tempering then. No, because England got 400.

So, Ramiz, you were—you were talking about umpiring. You were LBW to Phil DeFreitas for 47. Were you out? Can you remember? Not out.

Yeah, I was as an onside kind of a player, so it must have been must be good. Plum. Yeah, playing across the line.

Yeah. Anyway, what Jarvin made 153 and Sally Malik 165. Alex Stewart made 190 for England. Kind of a game to you know draw the curtains to really. A dull draw spoiled by the rain. High scoring match. So on to the second test.

Let's mention the umpires a second.

Go on.

Because it's worth noting again, and this all added. To the to the pot. Dickie Bird was considered England's finest umpire. He umpired in one of those games. David Shepherd, again massively respected and by the Pakistanis too, did only two games. Why? Why do the two best umpires indisputably and who would have calmed things down?

Calmed things down. Hundred percent.

Why did they only do one and two games? It you know it makes you wonder.

And also talking about the umpiring as well is. there was a sort of general call, wasn't there? And it was instigated by Imran for neutral umpires. Yeah, you'd use them in 1986. Some neutral umpires were used in a Test match between Pakistan and the West Indies.

Yes, I mean, and West Indies in those days was a really big team. I mean, you know, Viv Richards and company. But you see, what was happening under Imran was that Imran didn't like when we were being labeled as, as, as as cheaters or umpires really helping us. So the idea was born, I think it was a Sri Lankan tour in '85, '86, where he chatted amongst us in a dressing room chat. He said, look, enough is enough and we need to introduce this because nowhere else in the world you see these local umpires umpiring a local game. And that creates a bit of a bias. So let's try for this neutral umpire idea. And then he Persisted with that idea. And then actually, when it happened, it calmed so many things because we were only now looking to get to the— over the tape to win the game rather than worry about whether that leg before was the right call from the umpire, from the local umpire, from Shakur Rana or Shakil or whosoever they were during that period. So we were then able to focus squarely on cricket.

Yeah, so just on that, 1986, then first ever appearance of neutral umpires in, in Test match cricket. Pillay, Reporter, and VK Ramaswamy in, in Pakistan.

Yes.

Match against West Indies. 1992, the ICC ran trials requiring one neutral umpire per Test match. So around, you know, at that, around that time of this series, it's starting to really become a reality. 1994, neutral umpire system, one neutral umpire per match became officially mandated. And then 2002, we got to 2 neutron piles for every Test match. And that, you know, that has happened ever since.

Yeah, yeah. And it was very welcome. I mean, it just takes the heat out of everything, doesn't it? You know, and, you know, whatever, you know, it was driven hard by Imran and by Pakistan, but it was the right thing. You know, there was so much suspicion, you know, unhappiness at decisions. Chris Broad famously refusing to go off the field in one of the Test matches in '87. It nipped it all out in the bud. It's done away with it. You know, you know, it might be a bad decision, but it's just a bad decision. It's a mistake. It's not done for any other reason.

And of course, DRS now has put the icing on the cake, hasn't it?

Yeah, you can't argue with it.

No, I still remember there's a lot of backlash and resistance from the local umpires because they felt that, you know, their livelihood was at stake. And so, I mean, so we had to go through so much, and only I think Imran could have sealed the deal because he's an all-powerful guy.

Well, English umpires said, well, we'll never get to stand in a Test match at Lord's, so why are we going to be, you know, umpires if we're robbed of that opportunity? But that, that, that, that was— that soon went away.

Yeah, because I think the benefits to Test match cricket, you know, outweigh that in a way.

Definitely, sure.

I mean, yeah, there are always going to be winners and losers, I suppose, in any change that's made, a significant change in life. But there we go. Anyway, so let's just go on to the second Test match. The first Test match drawn at Edgbaston, rain ruined. Second Test match, and This really was the kind of the belter match of the series, wasn't it? Pakistan won the game by 2 wickets. England 255, Pakistan made 293, then England 175. And you thought, well, Pakistan, they didn't need too many to win, but actually they were 95 for 8.

Yes, I remember that. It's a very, very restless Lord's balcony. I think it was Wasim was batting with— I don't know what car Yes. Or with Moin, I'm not too sure. But it was heart-in-the-mouth kind of a situation where we sort of made a straightforward run look like an impossible Everest kind of a get-to situation.

Well, they felt like superheroes at the time. It was Wasim and Waqar who closed out that match. Wasim got 45 not out. Waqar had 20 not out.

Yeah.

And it was a novelty of watching them bat in tandem because you thought you'd seen them bowl in tandem for such a long time. time. These were these superstars. They've been bowling beautifully. I think Wasim got 4 in the second innings. Waqar got 5 wickets in the first innings. So you're thinking like, this is superb. And then there's this panic. And, you know, again, going back as a child, sort of watching this panic of, oh my God, they're crumbling. What's happening? Why aren't the batters getting runs? And then your 2 sort of heroes at the end of the film come along and they save the game. I vividly remember Waqar Younis playing a lofted off-drive just over the fielder who was stood at mid-off. And it really was a heart-in-mouth moment. It was like, oh my God, it's up in the air.

He's going to—

no, No, it's just cleared the fielder and it bounces away to the boundary. And it really was, um, yeah, it was, it was quite a spectacular finish. And it was a thrilling Test match and, uh, one I've repeated many— I think that VHS tape has probably seen better days for the amount of times I played it.

You, you didn't help out very much in that second innings.

Yeah, there's a story behind— there's a story behind my lack of form. So what happened is I developed this severe back pain and I hadn't played any Right. A couple of county matches. And so there was the doctor who came in his private jet somewhere in London, a Pakistani-Brit doctor. He said, look, we've got to, you know, we'll— there'll be anesthesia used, and so you'll go to sleep, and we'll— there's a nerve that is pinching in the back or somewhere. I said, please let me go back to Pakistan because I want to play that Lodsters match. So there's this guy who worked his fingers. I mean, his fingers are magic. Chiropractitioner. I got myself fixed.

Really?

But yeah, I went. So, so, I remember saying, what the hell is wrong with you? You know, people come here in UK to get their stuff fixed, but why are you going back? I said, look, I have confidence in this guy. So I went for this, this break. I think there were 2 back-to-back first-class matches which I missed. So I went back, came back and played that because I just wanted to play the Lord's Test match. Couldn't miss it. And you got naught. 24 and naught. I made it. I mean, you did because of me. It became such an interesting Test match in the end.

There you go. Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Well, you were in reasonable company in that second innings because Asif Mujtaba and also Javed Miandad were out for naught as well. So, you know, there'll be company up on that balcony. Um, but you, you got over the line. What did it mean to, to win that game?

Oh, it was massive actually, you know, winning a Test match at Lord's. And so, I mean, After a flat first Test match, this was huge actually. And then the world saw what Wasim and Waqar could do with the ball also. I mean, it's just wonderful bowling. Waqar was especially special because he had more pace than Waaz, and Waaz was difficult— left-arm angle, reverse— but Waqar was genuine pace.

He's one of the great sights to watch, Waqar Younis bowling in his pomp of a a ridiculously long run-up, tearing in, almost, almost kick-starting off the old Vauxhall stand at the Oval when he played at the Oval there. Uh, it was a sprint from start to finish, more energetic. I mean, Michael Holding ran a long way, but Mikey was kind of silky and smooth, as Whacker was just power. Double whirl of the arm, catapulted, boom. It was, it was, it was an exhilarating sight.

Yeah.

Unless you were 20 yards away with a bat. Yeah, that wasn't so good.

And, and Waz, of course, is a magnificent bowler as well, wasn't he? That fast arm action, left arm.

Yeah, I mean, they made our life so difficult in the nets because they'd bowl from 18 yards and bowl bouncers and then appeal and then make you feel so little.

Well, England's bowling attack in that match, in that second innings where Pakistan were chasing 140 to win, 141, do you remember England? They only— England only used 3 bowlers.

Well, I'm guessing Lewis was Chris Lewis.

Chris Lewis is one of them. Yeah, Ian Salisbury. Ian Salisbury. Was one. Yeah, he took 3 for 49.

It was his first Test match.

Yeah, I think it was his first. Yeah, because I remember he was also out hit wicket, and that was the first time I'd ever seen a hit wicket. Who is the third?

Devon. Devon Malcolm. Malcolm. Yeah, so England used 3 bowlers. They nearly, nearly lost a victory. So Pakistan home by 2 wickets, 1 up in this 5-match series.

Also, you wanted to— well, De Freitas Took three in the first innings. I don't know if I've been injured. That was Ian Botham's last Test match as well. Eden bowl in the in the second innings, and with Wasim and and and Waka, a lot of bowls and LBWs in that game. It was Waka's first series against England. Wasim had been an established global star for a long time, but Waka had taken 113 wickets, averaged 14 for Surrey the previous county summer, came into the series with 71 wickets at 19 in his first 14 Test. So he'd made this phenomenal start to his career, but he'd missed the World Cup injured, hadn't he?

So he did. He took him a little while to get into that series.

Yep. So on to Old Trafford then, uh, 3rd Test match at Old Trafford. This is where Roy Palmer features.

I think it's his first Test match as umpire, um, younger brother of Ken, who played one Test match for England in a very strange situation in South Africa. Uh, Roy was a lovely quiet fellow. He was one of those sort of traditional county umpires, used to trawl around with his caravan, uh, and he'd park up on the, on the, you know, Grace Road in our case, up in his van there. Uh, an old seam bowler himself, former seam bowler. Um, and yes, why they went to a, you know, a, a new debutant when they could have had Dickie or, or David Shepherd, I don't know. But I mean, this series was now, you know, one, one down. And these suspicions, you know, brewing up. You know, Wasim and Waqar taking all these wickets at Lord's, sort of a siege mentality growing within within the team. And it's also worth noting that the relations between the players and the press were different in those days. There was no media liaison person, so each media correspondent, newspaper, whatever. Made it his business because it— he, he had to get on well with maybe 3 or 4 players as a go-to interview for the end of the day because there wasn't somebody lined up like there is today. You know, it's not like yesterday with Josh Tung down there. Thanks very much. You have to go and do it yourself. Um, and so there were these quite tight relationships formed between journalists, particularly those who needed interviews, tabloid journalists, and England players. And so you can imagine, therefore, there's a lot of this stuff coming out of the England camp being fed to journalists as a sort of a two-way thing. And that has built up and built up and built up this feeling of, of something nefarious going on. And so that, that helped to feed that. The TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

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So let's go back to 1992. Manchester 2nd of July, 3rd Test match, and this ended in another draw, uh, another quite high-scoring draw. Ram, you got some runs, so that, that back treatment you were getting—

Thank God for that.

It really helped. 54 and 88.

You wouldn't be exposing my stats.

54 and 88 in that game. Pakistan 505 for 9 declared, England 390. Amissah Hale made a double hundred in that Pakistan, uh, 505 for 9 declared, England 390, and then Pakistan 390— sorry, 239 for 5 declared. There must have been some rain there as well, Zoltz, in that game that prevented, you know, some sort of conclusion to England obviously saving the follow-on. So that was, you know, that pushed the game more towards a draw.

The second day was totally washed out.

Yeah, this, this was— this Armistice Hill innings is one of my all-time favorite, uh, innings. I remember watching it and my mind was blown. He got 205 off 284 balls. It was a very quick double hundred. It was actually his first Test hundred in his third match and it was a double. So he started with a double hundred. And I vividly remember watching his interview on the BBC highlights that night, which obviously I recorded. And he was talking to— I think it was Geoffrey Boycott that he was talking to, oddly enough. And he said to him something like— You know, Geoffrey Boycott had said to him, At Lord's, you looked so good, you were going to get a double hundred. I thought you were going to get a double hundred. And he went in at 73 overnight. The next day, got out first ball of the day or whatever for 73. And then this time around, he had that in his mind the whole time. He was like, Boycott said I look good for a double hundred. Maybe I could get a double hundred. And, you know, Chris Lewis had a tough old time in that first innings because he kept feeding him that length that he felt comfortable driving down the ground, constant barrage of boundaries. I don't have it written in front of me, but I remember it vividly. 32 boundaries he had in— he hit in that 205. It really was a, a very special innings.

Yeah, well, fantastic.

Yeah, I mean, I, I remember, uh, opening with him, and so we were in after winning the toss, um, and I'd previously played in that '88 famous series against the Windies against Malcolm Marshall and you name it, you know, all the greats of the game, fast bowlers. And that opening spell from Devon Malcolm is the fastest I've ever faced. It's just lightning fast. And so we both, after a couple of overs, we said, what the hell? Why have— why are we batting first? It's— it looked greasy pitch and it looks so fast, and Devon Malcolm was making our life so difficult. So I mean, that Test match, as far as I'm concerned, you know, in my books will be remembered of how quick Devon Malcolm was.

So Devon bowling quickly, so was that, you know, was the Akeeb Javed bowling short balls at Devon Malcolm, was that kind of reciprocal? Because Devon was, I must have been whanging them down, you know, as you mentioned there. And because that led to, that led to the, the jumper pulling incident with Roy Palmer. You might want to describe it, I guess.

Well, it was still very much a thing in those days. Yes, you bowled bouncers at tail-enders. Yes, you did. But umpires are more likely to stand up for a tailender if they felt that there was— he was, um, yeah, he was, he was in danger, if you like, in being intimidated. And that it was— the law has always been so woolly about intimidatory fast bowling. Um, but Roy Palmer, um, decided, uh, that, uh, Aaqib Javed was bowling in an intimidatory fashion to Devon Malcolm, who, let's be honest, batted below Phil Tufnell, you know, in glasses. Yeah, Devon, Devon, Devon's batting actually has improved enormously now. He plays for Lashings, so he smashes the ball all over the place. Uh, he didn't in those days, uh, at this level. Um, and, and Roy Palmer decided, um, it's entirely his decision to make whether it's right or wrong, that Akeb Jawa was bowling too many bouncers at him, so he warned him to stop. And this, I think, From memory, I think Javed, who was a spiky character, brilliant batsman, but Javed was one of those always, always in it. He was always in the, you know, he kind of one of those people who was always in it, you know, bustling around. And from, I think he got involved in an argument anyway about this, and someone came running on, a spectator, I do remember this quite vividly, came running on towards the umpire, and that also sparked A bit of a bit of panic. A steward dashed on and bundled this this fella away, and Roy I think was was it was his first test match, and I think I think he was just a bit you know taken aback by the whole scenario. He's got Pakistan captain literally his photographs nose to nose, but like the you know Gatting and Shakurano nose furious arguments going on, and and Palmer just tried to take the sweater that Akib sweater out of his. coat. And of course sweaters, certainly in those days, sort of hung on a bit of a loop that dangled down from the coat. And so he's trying to pull this jumper out of this loop with all this going on, hullabaloo, steward bundling this bloke away, Javed going mad. He tries to pull this jumper out and it gets caught, gets stuck. And so he gives it an extra big tug to get it out and goes poof, basically. Not in a, you know, in a dangerous way, but it did hit Aqib Javed in the stomach or the solar plexus. You know, firmly, should we say? It's all went like that. There's an involuntary action. Well, then it all kicked off. I mean, it just you know.

Is that how you saw the incident, Ram?

Yeah, I think this is brilliant description of what happened. I mean, I missing few pieces, but I remember.

Where were you standing? So you're probably mid-off knowing you actually. Yeah, I remember. Go back a bit.

Were you on the field? Mid-on and mid-off was my favorite post. But yeah, I remember that, you know, it was getting ugly because— and then he came in and said, enough, enough, no more bounces. And then Aqib Jawed obviously got, you know, he didn't like that. And Jawed, as you rightly said, you know, a bit of an instigator.

Yes.

He got engaged and involved. And then I remember, because I remember it from the photograph where Palma is trying to get the sweater back to Aqib Jawed, and then All hell.

It was one of those things that could only have happened because of everything else that was going on.

Yeah, it was just the buildup of what was happening around all the other things.

Akib's perspective might have been that, you know, look, he pulled the jumper out.

He was very young, Akib, at the time too. He was 20, 21, something like that. He was a very young man.

So Roy Palmer sort of pulls the jumper out, but before he does it, he sort of shakes his head in disgust almost as he pulls out the jumper and hands it to Akib Javed. And it was the manner in which he gave it to him that irked him immediately. And then Javed Miandad comes into the fray and sort of pantomimes like, well, just don't— why, why are you flinging it at him? To give it to him properly, the jumper. And, um, and, uh, yeah, then they have sort of— they have a few words and things like that. Yeah, it wasn't very comfortable to watch at the time.

It was bad.

It wasn't great. And I remember Brian Johnston— we had a sort of news crossing in those days. There wasn't 5 Live, and something as Radio 2 or something came first, like a 45-second report or something. just as that was kicking off. And Brian was the most sort of relaxed broadcaster, but this required a 45-second report on a stopwatch, and he did it brilliantly. Someone— when the man came on, look out, Roy Palmer, behind you! I remember him saying, you know, this news crossing in the commentary that he had to do, um, with all this sweater stuff going on. It was, it was, I mean, a brilliant piece of reporting, um, but it was, it was unnecessary. But how old— I mean, he was a young man then.

He was a young man. The irony being that when he actually did bowl out Devon Malcolm, it was with a slower ball.

He hit Devon on the head.

Yeah, on the helmet. It flung almost at a right angle off his helmet as well, a short ball.

So he did, he did pepper him.

Yeah. So, okay, so that was— so the game was drawn. So it was Pakistan were 1-0 up going to the next Test match. So what was this kind of the temper in the series, if you like, at that stage?

Bad, terrible, really shocking. I mean, it was awful, um, because I said I interviewed Inty that night and he said that the, you know, the umpires are biased and that just fanned the flames, um, of, of what was going on. But because the media was still searching, they were still searching for evidence of ball tampering, and, and they couldn't, they couldn't find any. They were still searching.

Uh, yeah, but the, the Wisden description of that game, um, has some, some choice, uh, choice phrases in it. Uh, describes Ken Palmer, the umpire, Roy Palmer. Sorry, Roy Palmer retained the dignity of a patient policeman watching a family squabble amidst all that.

Who wrote that piece?

I don't know. Akeeb Javed was fined half of his match fee, Inter Cup. The team manager was reprimanded by the match referee. Little thing on the Rameez Raja, Armaan Sahail opening stand, 131 for 1 at lunch. For the loss of Rameez, writes Wisdom, given out off the ins of an inside edge discernible only to umpire Palmer.

Sawn off, Ram? Absolutely. Sawn off?

Can't remember, seriously.

And also in that game, David Gower, who's recalled for the first time since the Ashes tour 18 months before with the famous the flight incident, came back in the side, batted beautifully, and overtook Geoff Boycott as England's highest Test run scorer with a sumptuous extra cover drive.

Okay, so 1-0 after 3 Test matches. On to Headingley, yeah, for the 4th game. And this was a pretty low-scoring game, but there were also some ructions, surprisingly, in this game as well. So Pakistan 197 all out, England 320. Graeme Gooch made 135. Pakistan bowled out for 221. Neil Mallender played in that match. So in those days, you'll remember that— some listeners will remember it It was a real horses-for-courses ground, Headingley. So you picked a sort of trundler like Agus to come in and play this match.

I never played here, thank you.

I said like Agus. Anyway, Neil Mallender, the ghost. Yeah, the ghost. Yeah, he took 5 for 50 in the second innings and 3 for 72 in the first innings. Uh, took 8 wickets in the match. He wasn't player of the match. That went to Graham Gooch. Pakistan all out for 221. I think the controversy really kicked off in England's second innings, unless you can think of any other instances earlier in the game. Because Graham Gooch was given not out. I mean, you can see it on YouTube or whatever. I mean, it's a— it's an astonishing not out decision, isn't it? Because he was— he was out by, I mean, a considerable distance.

Only a yard. Yes. Yeah. Um, and— and it was umpire Palmer, but it was Roy's brother Ken. Yeah. Uh, keeping it in the family. Yes. Standing down. I can see it happening now. And it was just— yeah, it was just what the game did not, did not need. And there were reports of sort of photographs of it appearing on the sides of buses in Lahore and all sorts of things, you know. But again, it just, it was just further evidence that Pakistan wanted to demonstrate that the umpiring was biased. Was it a genuine mistake? Well, who knows? It was Ken Palmer who made, who did it, and he was a very experienced umpire, very experienced umpire. So a lot of Test cricket, and he'd done a lot of county cricket at that time. People make mistakes, but, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're trying to drive an agenda, then obviously he did it on purpose.

How did you see it, Ram? Can you remember?

I can't remember this, no. Um, just, uh, remember sort of the, the pitch wasn't as, uh, spicy or as difficult to bat on. I remember that. I think Neil Melinda was probably making his Test match debut. And he's a swing bowler, medium pace. So we were quite wary of the fact that Headingley will offer some assistance to seam bowlers, medium pacers. But other than that, I forget about this Graham Goose thing. Yeah, completely off my mind.

Well, we'll show it to you afterwards.

I mean, it's an explosive photograph of it.

Do you remember, Atif? Did it resonate with you?

It didn't at the time. Like, it wasn't something that stood out as like a major element of it. But it did feel like it was almost like a Star Wars movie. It's The Empire Strikes Back in this test match because it was sort of a very strong England. And you sort of wondered, but Neil Mallender, I've never heard of this guy. Who is this guy? I've never seen him on my C-Fact score.

There was another incident because Rashid Latif was fined. If we can get the wisdom up there, Zoltan, there was more stuff going on.

I think there was another issue.

He was keeping wicket, I think.

In that second innings as well where Pakistan were convinced they They had, uh, one of the England players out. Yeah, I think it was.

Yeah, there was more fines handed out.

Yeah, so, but England got over the line. They, they, they chased and, well, they scored 99 for 4 to win. Amazingly, 42.4 overs as well. 99 to win, so at 2 runs per over to level the series at 1-all.

The England first innings had one of Wacker's great spells. England were 292 for 2. Then lost the last 8 for 28. And, uh, Wacker, um, the bottom half of England's card after Gooch made that big 100, Atherton 76, from 6 downwards, 0-1, 0-0, 1-0. Um, and, uh, brilliant, fast, full.

I mean, all bowled in overw.

Yeah, yeah, right. So 1-1 going to the final Test match. I mean, that's really what you want in a series, isn't it? Although, you know, there'd been a lot of needle Up until that point. So the Oval Test match, 22nd of August, uh, 1992. England batted first and they were going very nicely. They were 138 for 2 and then 207 all out, and Wasim took 6 for 61.

Brilliant bowling from a brilliant, a brilliant bowler. I don't remember that game, um, quite so clearly, but apart from that incident involving Akeeb Javed. This is the shame of that series, that the cricket was so good and the series was so good that there was just so much attention being focused on, on stuff off the field. And that was a great shame of it because it would go down as one of the great series, which is marred by all this stuff that was going on. Not just even on the edges, it was going on throughout, throughout the whole thing. It was a very hostile, very, very antagonistic atmosphere about the whole thing.

Yeah, so England bowled out for 207, Pakistan making 380. England bowled out for 174, which left Pakistan the simple task of scoring 5 for no wicket. And you were there at the end, Ram.

Yeah, I remember picking up the middle stump, um, as a souvenir. But it was a great end to— yeah, I mean, you know, it wasn't a superb series off the field, on the field as well, but we'll remember it as, uh, as a complete tour where we We won a lot of county matches. We won the Test series also. We had just been the world champions at the World Cup in Australia. So it all ended really well. And then to do it without Imran. So Imran had retired and Javed had just taken over. A different kind of a character, different kind of leadership. And so it all ended well in the end for us. And then we found Wasim and Waqar as a deadly pair.

Well, they took 43 wickets between them in the series. And Wasim was player of the series for 118 runs and 21 wickets.

Getting that Oval Test, Wasim, yeah, 6 in the first innings, another late order collapse with the last 7 wickets going for 25.

The lower order could not cope with reverse swing. They had no idea how to play.

But then in the, in the second innings after Pakistan, a good team effort, a lot of players making a contributing Rashid Latif 50 on debut down the order. Yeah, Waka Younis with the new ball. I remember it was one of the first days of Test cricket I went to, and he bowled a new ball spell. There's been a lot of talk about how he hadn't been so effective with the new ball, and he got out Graeme Gooch, Alex Stewart, Mike Atherton, and David Gower in his new ball spell. That was David Gower's last Test, and he finished with 5 in that innings as well. Mushtaq Ahmed bowled really well. It was just a wonderful team to watch, but that spell was Do you remember that particular new ball spell?

Yeah, I remember. Because you see, I had the best view in the gallery because I would be at short leg most times, you know, when these guys were bowling at 100 miles an hour. And at the top of the run-up, I remember Waqar at times— and this is David Gower and Ian Botham batting— it's going to be a yorker. He'd announce it. The batsmen will hear it as well and could do nothing about it. It's just—

Really?

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

And I was— and we were waiting, that's going to be either a spread eagle or bat pad or whatever. It's just too fast to handle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember Michael Atherton playing quite a dogged innings in that first match, that first innings. I got himself 60 off 190, and there was a lot of surviving, uh, some high-quality fast bowling from Wasim Akram as well. But my favorite thing about that match is that when Pakistan needed 5 to win In the second innings, the ball was thrown to Mark Ramprakash, who started with a wide, and the next—the first legitimate ball was put away for four off Amrishahill, and that was how they won. But poor Mark Ramprakash, what an assignment!

Go defend five. Okay, right. So we come to the end of the series. Pakistan have won it by two matches to one, but there was still one more chapter to come in the acrimony. Because there was— there were more One Day Internationals to be played after the Test series had finished. Remember I said there were 2 at the start and 3 at the end? Now we get to the Lord's match.

And nobody wanted to play the, the One Days anymore because, you know, we were so exhausted after the Test series.

And all those county matches.

Yeah. And, you know, from say whatever, April to September, it's such a long stretch.

Yeah. So there were 3, uh, One Day Internationals played at the end, and in one of them, the game at Lord's— well, you, you tell the story, Jonathan.

Well, yeah, I mean, there was still the— I mean, you know, as we've seen that last Test match, again, reverse swing blowing away the lower order. There's, there's still this, uh, this, this business of trying to, trying to nail, um, if that's the right word, Ball tampering, and there had been there had been that shot of Akib Javed at the Oval, which kind of just kept that thing going. But come this Lords One Day International, which was rain affected and went over went over two days, it wouldn't have been an issue actually in modern One Day International.

No, it wouldn't have been an issue. The game would have been abandoned, wouldn't it? Exactly. Yeah.

The ball was the ball used by Pakistan who had batted first England then batting. The ball was changed. And I can't remember how I learned about it, but it was a phone call. I mentioned the contacts that players had with, with pressmen. There was a phone call from the England dressing room to the press box at Lord's that the ball had been changed. There was no announcement made about it. Nothing obvious was done. It was done, I believe, at lunchtime on the second day. So it was done quietly, and no one knew.

The umpires were John Hampshire and Ken Palmer.

Right. So the ball's changed, um, and nothing is said. But again, it's just open therefore to, um, one last effort to finally say, there you go, the umpires have changed the ball because, because they're scratching it up and cheating. Uh, there it is. So there's a— it was Derek Murray, who's a lovely chap, uh, the West Indian wicketkeeper, uh, from Trinidad. He was the match referee. And, and so he's, he's now the man who has to make this decision. The ball, the ball has changed. Something came round, word came round there's going to be a press release and a press conference in the Lord's Pavilion at the end of the game. This is it, this is it. And all, all the press are up there waiting for this. And sure enough, statements handed round, and there was one sentence on the statement: the ball was changed. Full stop. And that was it. That was it. And as far as we know, the ball was locked into a safe at Lord's where we think it might still, might still be.

It's never emerged, has it?

I think because, because in those days also there was— it was, it was all quite litigious. I mentioned the, you know, the question of, um, uh, you know, Safaraz and Alan Lamb. Um, I can't remember if it was before or after Imran had taken in both of them to court.

Oh, that's right.

That was an incident also.

That was in 1996, wasn't it?

A lot of this is all litigious stuff. How do you prove— this is what the ICC was saying— how do you prove that that ball has definitively been tampered with and who did it? And so that was why, you know, that ridiculous press statement was put out. No one dared say anything. No one said do anything. Poor old Derek flew back to Trinidad, um, and it was, it was the next day that Alan wrote that piece in the Daily Mirror, uh, entitled How Pakistan Cheated Cricket. It was still going the whole summer from beginning to end. That was the, that was the media line, and it just never— it was, it was never, never proved, never proved either way. And, and Then, as Ram says, everyone started doing it and having a go, but they had to disguise it because now, of course, the umpires look and check. At the end of every over, the umpire has a look at the ball. Now, when a wicket falls, the umpire's thrown the ball by the players. All things that have been brought in to try and stop anything that is illegal, because you are not allowed to scratch a ball. You're not allowed to, dare I say it, rub dirt on a ball, which that happened 2 years later.

Which is another story altogether.

Another story. But the reason that I took that particular line with Mike Atherton doing that was because of this series. I felt that because of the attitude that the British media had taken towards Pakistan, that it would not be right if we've turned a blind eye to the England captain looking suspiciously as if he was ball tampering. And that was why I took a fairly strong line on that. Because I just felt that it wouldn't be right otherwise, because Pakistan had been condemned. That there was no evidence of it that was that was at least able to be put out to to say yes or no either way. And so that was why why old dirt in the pocket flared up as it did.

How did you react, Ramiz, to the ball change at Lord's?

I was actually captaining the the side because Jawed. Was injured. I think he wasn't playing that game. And then the vice captain, Saleem Malik, couldn't turn up for fielding also. He was the vice captain. So I took over the charge. And so, yeah, I mean, we had no idea what was happening because we were just informed during the lunch break that the ball has been replaced without letting us know why. And so I remember the manager then writing a complaint that nothing was discussed. It's just been changed by the umpire or the match referee. I— we— and, and so we protested in the, in the dressing room, uh, that, uh, never a thing was mentioned on the field. You know, there's no suspicious as such from the umpires to suggest that we were doing something with the ball. And so suddenly, you know, during the lunch break, we were given a new ball, and yet we go on to win this game. So I mean, we just couldn't understand that. It's never been satisfactorily done.

I mean, Darryl Hair at the Oval that time, remember when the runs were just added to the score? Yeah, yeah. Uh, and so hang on a minute, why has that been added? Well, there must have been ball tampering. You know, it's, it's, it's never been adequately, yeah, dealt with because it's a very serious— it's a delicate issue. It is. It's, you know, you are labeling somebody a cheat effectively, and, and And it's, it's always been a difficult one for cricket to handle.

How did you feel at the end of that tour, Ramiz? You'd won the Test series, you lost the one-day series, and all this furore about all sorts of things— umpiring, ball tampering, all that sort of thing. But you'd come and done the job, I suppose.

Yeah, I mean, from a cricketing point of view, we were absolutely ecstatic. Beating England in England was a big deal. But then obviously we didn't need that controversy. I mean, we were being labeled as cheats. Nobody wants that. I never tampered with the ball myself, so why would I be part of the gang? So I felt really bad about the whole situation. And most of us believed that we were undone. You know, it was unjust from the British press to be to be going after us all the time with a suspicious eye. We didn't like it. We didn't. And I mean, that series should always be remembered because of what Wasim and Waqar achieved with the, with the old ball. It was just phenomenal bowling, really was.

And it set up a new generation of cricket. Yeah, the reverse swing, which still carries on today. I suspect mostly legitimately. I suspect those cricketers will always find a way. Um, in my day it was lip salve or peppermints, or it was that people would suck. Professional sportsmen will always find a way. Um, so who knows what the latest, latest technique is, but, but reverse swing is now accepted entirely as being a legitimate part of the game.

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, so in a way, I mean, a series that had lots of Consequences for the future, you know, neutral umpiring, for example. Um, also, I suppose, down the line, uh, DRS as well. I mean, you wouldn't— the, the Graeme Gooch run-out situation at Headingley would never have happened in the, in the modern game, would it? Because we'd have just gone straight upstairs, and there was no DRS back in those days.

And also, what's really good is that the relations between the 2 teams, you know, quickly actually became much better. They did, yeah. And now there's no question at all of any animosity or anything, but there was for a while. It was not a healthy state of affairs between England and Pakistan, but happily things are better now.

I think these leagues have also contributed to knowing each other rather than living in that tribe mentality. I think that really has helped us understand each other much better.

They were beefy, saying he wouldn't send his mother-in-law to Pakistan, all that sort of stuff, you know. I know he said it in jest, but it was kind of the— yeah, it was just the way that it was, relations were at the time.

The TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

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