A tournament built for the lights
The fifth World Cup was the first held in the southern hemisphere and the first that looked like the modern game. Coloured clothing, white balls, black sightscreens, floodlights for the evening matches. Nine teams played a complete round robin rather than the two qualifying groups used before, so everyone met everyone once and no side could hide behind a soft draw. South Africa were among them, readmitted to the ICC only weeks earlier after twenty-one years outside international cricket, with no real idea of how good they were.
Martin Crowe set the terms of the cricket. He opened the New Zealand bowling with the off-spinner Dipak Patel, which nobody did, and sent Mark Greatbatch out to swing at the new ball, which nobody sensible did either. New Zealand won their first seven matches. Crowe finished with 456 runs, more than anyone, and took the player of the tournament award.
Pakistan, nearly out
Pakistan spent three weeks looking like a side going home early. England bowled them out for 74 at Adelaide and the rain saved them a point they had not earned. They lost to India, to South Africa, to West Indies. Then something turned. Wins over Australia, Sri Lanka and New Zealand carried them into the semi-finals, where Inzamam-ul-Haq, twenty-two years old and batting at number four, hit 60 from 37 balls at Eden Park to run down 262.
Twenty-two off one ball
The other semi-final is why 1992 is still argued about. South Africa needed 22 from 13 balls at Sydney when rain took ten minutes out of the evening. Under the Most Productive Overs method the two lost overs were deducted from the least productive overs of England's innings, a maiden and a one-run over, so almost nothing came off the target while thirteen balls became one. The scoreboard and the television coverage both showed 22 needed from a single delivery; the actual requirement was 21. Either way it was over. Australia dropped the rule for domestic one-day cricket soon afterwards, and the whole episode led fairly directly to Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis sitting down with a sheet of paper.
Imran's last stand
The final at the MCG drew 87,182 people. Pakistan lost both openers cheaply and crawled; Imran Khan promoted himself, made 72 in 110 balls alongside Javed Miandad's 58, and Inzamam-ul-Haq and Wasim Akram took 124 off the last fifteen overs to reach 249 for 6. Wasim then removed Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis with successive deliveries, and England, who had rebuilt through Lamb and Neil Fairbrother, were finished at 141 for 6. Pakistan won by 22 runs.
It was Imran's last one-day international. Pakistan had never won a global trophy before and have not won this one since. The tournament also settled several questions about how one-day cricket should be played, and left one glaring problem for the statisticians to solve.