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My sixth and last World Cup in 1996 only brings up unhappy memories for me. We lost despite having a strong side as the team lacked unity or the desire to play for the country.
There are so many other factors too that prevented us from going further than the quarter-finals in that tournament. I was treated as an extra, unwanted player all along. Not being made captain for the tournament I, as the most senior member of the team, was at least the obvious choice for it after Wasim Akram declared himself unfit on the morning of that quarter-final against India at Bangalore, which also didn’t happen.
What happened was that being sent at number five, six or even seven to bat, I wasn’t utilised the way I should have been. When fielding they made me stand somewhere far away at third man. I have always been a team player but the way they were treating me made me regret even making myself available for this edition of the World Cup.
I am very serious when I say that when you looked at the body language of the players, it didn’t even seem like they were playing in a World Cup. I could tell that something was very wrong from the very start. I said this then and I say this even now.
Looking at all the spot-fixing and match-fixing scandals surrounding our boys these days, you never know what you’ll find if you run an inquiry of those matches now for what we are going through right now is the result of taking all those strange happenings so lightly at the time.
Finally, disappointed and disgusted by all that had happened in the Pakistan camp during that World Cup I just announced my retirement in the bus that took us back to our hotel after our quarter-final loss to India of all teams! —Javed Miandad was speaking to Shazia Hasan
