Gibbs drops the World Cup

After starting so falteringly, Australia’s 1999 World Cup campaign had found such a smoothness and confidence in the Super Six phase of the tournament that suddenly Steve Waugh’s prediction that they simply had to win seven matches out of seven to lift the trophy seemed ever-so-slightly less ridiculous.

However, belting Zimbabwe’s bowlers all around Lord’s on a sunny day presented a far different assignment to what lay ahead in their last Super Six outing – Cup favourites South Africa and their world-class seam attack in less hospitable conditions in Leeds.

The venue where Australia’s campaign had become all-but-unhinged courtesy of their unconvincing loss to Pakistan three weeks earlier.

In the days leading into his team’s return to Headingley to tackle South Africa, Stephen Waugh didn’t decline any half chance that came his way to try and gain a psychological stronghold over the team that most had now installed as clear favourites to win the World Cup for the first time.

Whether prompted by obliging media questions or simply by addressing it unprompted, Waugh took every opportunity to point out there was no international cricket team Australia admired and respected more than South Africa.

“That’s why we get such great enjoyment out of beating them,” he taunted.

He was acutely aware that, player-for-player, South Africa fielded the most complete team in the game at that time, including names such as Donald, Pollock, Kirsten, Gibbs, Cronje, Boucher and the man who had established himself as the one-day game’s most destructive player – Lance Klusener.

And that those same individuals had failed to win any major international cricket trophy in the eight years since their nation returned from sporting isolation, which carried with it a crushing weight of hope.

Happily adding to that burden, Waugh also pointed out that his team always performed well against South Africa in matches that mattered.

“They know that, so this will be a pointer to who’ll win the World Cup,” he said prior to the Headingley match.

As a street fighter, Waugh knew the value in wielding any weapon that lay within reach.

And other, seemingly less plausible, items were then added to the arsenal.

At a team meeting on match eve, Shane Warne – not for the first or last time – prompted sniggers and muttering among his teammates when he presented his ‘ownership’ offering in keeping with the newly implemented pre-game planning regime.

"If you’re batting and Herschelle Gibbs takes a catch, then stand your ground," Warne announced, before being forced to explain further by a room full of puzzled looks.

"He doesn’t hold it," Warne continued, becoming more insistent.

"He shows off , and flicks it straight up into the air."

More eye-rolling ensued, but Warne went on to reveal that he had discussed this very issue with other international players.

And that on the West Indies’ recent tour to South Africa, Antiguan Ridley Jacobs went so far as to inquire of the umpires whether Gibbs had shown sufficient control over a catch, such was the fielder’s enthusiasm to rid himself of the ball in the interests of showmanship.

On that day, Gibbs blamed the mishap on a painkilling injection that had left him with no feeling in the middle finger of his right hand.

He was to experience even greater discomfort at Headingley.

Of course, the danger with dishing out trash talk is that deeds will always have the final word.

To that end, accusations of mental frailty seemed wrongly apportioned when Australia’s bowlers let South Africa post a hefty 271, and then their top-order batsmen wilted in reply.

The South Africans gathered in high spirits at the fall of the third wicket (Damien Martyn) with the Australian score precariously balanced at 3-48.

That’s when, under thinning Yorkshire clouds and past the black-cloaked sight screen, Stephen Waugh all but gate-crashed the game, his normally brusque walk to the centre taking on additional urgency – as if he intended to individually put the entire opposition XI to the sword.

Expecting a tense, introspective Australian skipper, given the circumstances, the South Africans were stunned when Waugh arrived, all gums blazing.

"I’m going after you today," he goaded rival captain, Hansie Cronje, who had not even contemplated taking the ball himself at that stage.

"I want a piece of you," he snarled at other South African bowlers, his demeanour fuelled by an overdose of adrenalin and a pathological disdain for defeat.

Despite their unquestionable position of strength, Cronje’s men suddenly felt under siege.

But the most memorable remark attributed to Stephen Waugh on that history-shaping afternoon was one he never made.

Having faintly raised Australian hopes on the back of his own fighting half-century, Waugh flicked a ball off his pads and floated a waist-high catch to midwicket.

Gibbs accepted the straightforward offering, but – as if reading from Warne’s fantastic script – he inexplicably went to celebrate the decisive breakthrough by flicking the ball casually over his shoulder.

Only this time, instead of launching skywards, the ball dribbled from his grasp and on to the Headingley turf.

As per the team talk, Waugh defiantly stood his ground.

The crowd of more than 15,000 caught its breath.

Cronje lodged a half-hearted, and ultimately futile, appeal, arguing that his fielder had actually controlled the ball.

Unlike the Australian captain, it was summarily dismissed.

It was then, as the South Africans silently moved through the field to begin the next over, that the greatest sledge never made was supposedly uttered.

Legend maintains Waugh deliberately placed himself in Gibbs’s path, and heaped salt into an already gaping wound by growling, "How does it feel to drop the World Cup?"

With his team still requiring 120 runs from nineteen overs simply to remain in the tournament, it would have been a remark dripping with the sort of hubris that had just indelibly marked Gibbs’s career.

But the fact that Australia ultimately got there, with two deliveries to spare and Waugh unbeaten on 120, gave the fabrication lip-smacking appeal.

In truth, Waugh said something along the lines of "That’s going to cost your team today, Hersh", in keeping with the earlier lip he had dished out.

But the more incendiary version was tailor-made for newspapers. Or, in this case, made up by them.

Nobody has owned up to fathering the falsehood, just as there was a fraternal unwillingness among the touring Australian media contingent to expose it as a fib.

And for once, Waugh did not mind being misquoted.

After all, he had just compiled what he long regarded as the best century of his career, under unimaginable pressure, against the world’s best all-round bowling attack, on a lively Leeds track.

And despite reeking of arrogance, the fake quote fitted the Australians’ broader goal snugly.

Especially when it was revealed that their semi-final opponent, four days later in Birmingham, would be South Africa.

This is an edited extract from ‘The Wrong Line’ by Andrew Ramsey, published by ABC Books and which is available in paperback or e-book through the ABC Shop.