Watch the highlights of England vs West Indies 2nd Match Reliance World Cup 1987 - Reliance World Cup 1987 tournament of the 2nd ODI match played between West Indies and England at Municipal Stadium, Gujranwala in 09th October 1987.
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| Allan Lamb hit a unbeaten fifty © YouTube |
Allan Lamb's unbeaten half-century and tailenders helped to England to breathtaking two-wicket victory over West Indies in a last-over thriller of the second match of a Reliance World Cup.
West Indies scored 243-7 in 50 overs with top scorer by Richie Richardson struck 53 off 80-balls including 8-fours.
Gus Logie cracked a 49 off 41-balls - who fell one-run short of his half-century - including 3-fours & a six, Jeff Dujon scored 46 off 76-balls included 3-fours, Roger Harper hammered a 24 off 10-balls contained 3-fours & a six with strike rate of 240, Vic Richards 27 and Desmond Haynes 19.
England best bowler by Neil Foster picked up 3-wickets and one for Phil DeFreitas - Gladstone Small.
England chased 246-8 in 49.3 overs with top scorer by Allan Lamb hit a unbeaten 67 off 68-balls including 5-fours & a six.
Graham Gooch scored 47 off 93-balls including three boundaries, Mike Gatting 25, Phil DeFreitas 23 and John Emburey 22.
West Indies best bowler by Carl Hooper picked up 3-wickets for 42-runs in 10-overs, Patrick Patterson took 2-wickets and one for Courtney Walsh.
This match reported by Peter Deeley (Third Party Reference from The Daily Telegraph)
AS a chaser of lost causes, Allan Lamb probably has no equal in one-day cricket and he proved the point by guiding England to a breathtaking two-wicket victory over the West Indies in their opening World Cup match.
The man who last winter scored 18 off a final over in Australia to accomplish a near-impossible win, presided over another triumph with an unbeaten 67 when all reason suggested that the game was dead and buried.
With three overs left and England's No 10, Neil Foster, coming to the wicket, 34 runs were needed off the West Indies' paIcemen Patrick Patterson and Courtney Walsh.
But with 16 off Walsh's penultimate over, six off Patterson's last and 15 off a nightmare final five deliveries by the Gloucestershire bowler-one going for four wides and another called as a no-ball-England eventually won with three balls to spare.
Lamb said afterwards that he could not remember playing in such heat. When he was greeted by Mike Gatting on the pavilion steps at the end of the game he virtually collapsed into the England captain's arms. For several minutes afterwards he was too exhausted to be able to speak.
He said later: "Those last three overs I was playing the shots from memory. I really don't think I could have gone on any more. People look to me to do this, but I would much rather we made it with plenty in hand. "Don't say it was a one-man win. The others all chipped in. It just shows that when you want 10 runs an over it can be done."
Their own merits aside, England succeeded because West Indies were weak in that department that was once their phenomenal strength, fast bowling.
In this match they only played three quick men, Patterson, Walsh and Winston Benjamin, and when the need at the end was for good line and full length they looked in vain for a Holding or a Marshall.
Gatting rightly said it was a team victory, but no-one deserved more credit than Phillip DeFreitas who rose from what was almost a sickbed to produce splendid bowling figures of one for 31, fielded heroically on the boundary and then once more answered the call with the bat, striking 23 runs off 20 balls.
Without Gordon Greenidge West Indies' early batting also looked vulnerable. Put in here, DeFreitas soon had Best chopping on to this wicket and then Haynes ran himself out foolishly.
Even in the 52-run partnership of Richards and Richardson there was none of that blazing dominance that we have come to expect. Small, once he had found his line, bothered Richards several times and when Richardson had passed 50 Foster bowled him with a good ball of full length.
Dujon and Logie revived West Indies after Richards had bottom-edged Foster on to his stumps. They added 83, even Foster conceding 13 runs in one over, including a Logie pull for six.
Foster got his revenge by yorking Logie, but that only opened the way for Harper's ferocious assault on Pringle at the end, scoring 24 off 10 balls before Small bowled him.
One man did not figure among the wicket-takers yet bowled as good a 10-over spell as we are likely to see: John Emburey finished with nought for 22 scarcely putting a ball off line even though he still seemed to be favouring his injured ankle.
Early on, when they were fresh, Walsh and Patterson got lift from the wicket and Broad was soon a victim, caught behind. Robinson, coming in at No 3, tried to steal a run to Harper with the bowler himself doing the fielding and the result was predictably suicidal.
With Gooch and Gatting the runs began to flow for the first time until the England captain, in two minds, was bowled by Hooper.
The 21-year-old, bowling a mixture of off-breaks and seamers, got his second wicket in three balls when Gooch, who had fought hard, was caught behind for 47. The England innings appeared to be falling apart when Pringle and Downton were out cheaply.
The run-rate was up to nine an over when Emburey joined Lamb and with what' one can only call "Emprovisation" proceeded to score 22 in 15 balls with shots which sometimes defied geometric logic.
Emburey and DeFreitas gave Lamb sorely-needed help until Patterson flattened their stumps. Then Lamb flailed the exhausted Walsh for 21 off seven balls to take him to 67 not out and Foster snicked the winning four.
A final mental impression of the game encompasses it all: a perspiring Lamb taking the £300 cheque for man-of-the-match with Walsh standing in the background quite inconsolable, wiping what could have been tears from his eyes.
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