Kiran More, the former India wicketkeeper, has opened up on the incident involving him and Javed Miandad during India’s clash with Pakistan in the 1992 World Cup.
Miandad famously imitated More’s style of appealing, which became one of the symbols of the India-Pakistan rivalry. Chasing a target of 217, the Pakistan batsman was batting cautiously to help his side cross the line in Sydney but the excessive appealing from the India wicketkeeper didn’t go down well with him.
“I still remember that incident,” More said on The Greatest Rivalry podcast. “We batted and got to 218 (216) but we thought that we were about 20-30 runs short. When we batted, we faced a lot of hostility from the Pakistan team on the field, they were saying a lot of things to us. So it was time for us to give it back. And I was the number one guy in the team, one who was given the license to go after them by the team management.
“So from the first ball, I started going after them. When Javed came in to bat, Aamer Sohail was batting along with him and they were doing pretty well actually, they had the game in hand. But I thought Javed was over-cautious, he stopped Aamer Sohail from getting into the flow and play big shots and that pressure was building up all the time.
“Because he had a back problem, he could not drive the ball. So I kept telling my bowlers to pitch up to him, doesn’t matter if it’s a half volley as well. So he was struggling to hit those balls, the wicket was also not easy, it was sticky, the ball was doing a bit and was not coming on the bat.
“And there were two-three appeals on Sachin [Tendulkar]’s bowling – I thought there was a close caught-behind call, then I tried to stump him down the leg side, again I appealed for a leg before, then I appealed for a run out so when I did the run-out appeal and removed the bails, he started imitating me.”
Though Miandad managed to hold on to his wicket for longer than India would have wanted, his 110-ball-40 wasn’t enough for Pakistan as they lost the encounter by 43 runs.
