Gladstone Small was in the England team that dismissed Pakistan for 74 and then lost to them in the final

Gladstone Small was in the England team that dismissed Pakistan for 74 and then lost to them in the final

I remember the day really well. The weather hadn't been very good in Adelaide, it had been raining through the night so the wicket was a bit spicy.

Pakistan were a very gifted team with Inzamam-ul-Haq and Javed Miandad in the side. They also had Wasim Akram, who launched himself on to the international stage in the tournament. We'd played quite poorly against Zimbabwe and they'd beaten us, so we were under pressure. But we knew they had also struggled in the tournament and that this was our chance to knock them out.

We won the toss and put them in and things went very well. Phil DeFreitas got Inzamam first ball. I ended up getting Ijaz Ahmed and Moin Khan, their wicketkeeper-batsman, and finished with 2 for 29 off 10 overs. It was a great feeling bowling them out for 74.

We thought we'd got all this time to get the runs, but the heavy rain came in between innings and the game was delayed again and again. The overs kept getting reduced. In the end we had 10 overs to get them and they had this stupid rule for the tournament that meant that we needed to get 62 runs from those 10 overs. It was ridiculous. It should have been that we needed to get 14 or something like that.

We tried to go for them anyway, but it rained again and it was declared a wash-out and we shared the points, one each. In the end that was enough for them to qualify for the semi-finals.

The rain rule had done Pakistan a favour, but it also did us a favour in the semi-final against South Africa, where it helped us get through to the final.

But we really hadn't thought that we'd end up playing Pakistan in the final because they weren't playing that well. We should have knocked them out and they would never have had the chance to be so great in the final.

As it happened Wasim bowled Ian Botham, Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis in the space of five or six overs coming round the wicket. It was incredible bowling and it won them the match.

I do look back and think, well, England still haven't won the World Cup and that was probably our best chance. We had a tremendous team then. A lot of talent, a lot of experience. We've never got close since.

Then what happened

England lost to Pakistan in the final. Small retired in 1999 having taken 1,314 wickets and played in the last England team to win the Ashes in Australia. He will be back there with ITC Sports following England's tour next winter.