Rewind to 1992

While rain delayed the start in Barbados Channel Nine treated us to a replay of the the highlights of the 1992 World Cup final in which Pakistan defeated England.

1992 isn't that long ago, and while the format of the games (though not the tournament) has remained much the same, there are some noteworthy differences, eg that not all batters wore helmets (even against quick bowling) and that England And Pakistan contested the final. In one significant respect things have gone backwards since then: the game was played under lights at the MCG. Some artificial illumination would have been most welcome in Barbados today.

A few other observations:

• Pakistan's 249 from 50 overs was a winning score. England came close, but were all out for 227 in 49.2 overs.
  

• The only player in the match who played in the 2007 tournament was Inzamam ul Haq, or "Haq" as the back of his coloured shirt described him (the legspinner Mushtaq Ahmed is still playing English county cricket) . You won't be surprised to hear that the 1992 model Inzamam was appreciably slimmer than the 2007 version. In one respect he was well up to 2007 standards: his 42 in 35b was by far the quickest innings played by anyone in the game.
  

• One of the umpires was Steve Bucknor, who even then took his time responding to appeals. (The other umpire was a New Zealander - not Billy Bowden - whose decision making capabilities were questioned by the commentators). Some things don't change much.
  

• Most of the TV commentary team featured (inc Richie Benaud, Tony Greig, Ian Chappell and Bill Lawry) are still working for Channel Nine. David Gower also gave us the benefit of his wisdom. I'm not sure if, or for whom, he's still commentating.
  

For more about the tournament see Cricinfo's (presumably retrospective) highlights. From this you'll see that Brian Lara also appeared in both the 1992 and 2007 tournaments (opening the batting in some of the 1992 games).