Taylor-made, the epitome of what’s cricket
Warne, Waugh bookie scandal overshadows achievements on field
Posted: Thursday December 31, 1998 05:46 PM
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Taylor (above) tied Don Bradman's highest-ever score by an Australian, then refused to chase Lara's world record Ben Radford/Allsport |
LONDON (AP) -- Mark Taylor's Aussie record-tying 334 and his refusal to chase Brian Lara's world record amazed cricket fans in 1998.
Muttiah Muralitharan's match-winning nine for 59 and 16 total wickets for Sri Lanka against England was the bowling performance of the year.
But the biggest headlines were for Shane Warne's 5,000 and Mark Waugh's 6,000. Not runs or wickets, but the Australian dollars they received from an Indian bookmaker in one of the biggest scandals to hit cricket in the long history of the sport.
The gentlemanly game of cricket was dragged through the mud in the final month of an eventful year when Australian stars Warne and Waugh admitted that they accepted cash from an illegal bookmaker. The cash was for giving him inside information on weather and playing conditions during matches in Pakistan in 1994.
They were each fined in '95 by the Australian Cricket Board but the fact that the scandal was kept secret, even by the sport's world governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), added to the shame, which was eventually exposed by an Australian newspaper.
It also overshadowed some great performances, especially by Taylor and Muralitharan.
The 34-year-old Australian captain was dismissed by the media and many of the Australian fans 18 months ago. But he kept his job and became a hero when he tied Don Bradman's highest ever score by an Australian, 334, playing against Pakistan at Peshawar in October.
The dogged left-hander was not out overnight and, instead of chasing the 42 runs to beat Lara's world record 375, he declared. Taylor said that matching the legendary Bradman was achievement
enough.
But he still led Australia to a 1-0 series victory over Pakistan and ended the year making sure Australia held on to the Ashes for a record-tying sixth consecutive time.
Australian stars Warne and Waugh (above) admitted that they accepted cash from an illegal bookmaker in 1994 Clive Mason/Allsport | |
A thunderstorm denied Australia a first-test victory over England at Brisbane but Taylor's team outplayed Alec Stewart's men at Perth and Adelaide to open up a 2-0 lead with two matches to go.
Muralitharan chose the one-off test against England at the Oval to produce the fifth best bowling performance in the history of cricket.
The off-spinner, who was once accused by an umpire of having an illegal throwing action but was cleared by the ICC, took seven wickets for 155 runs in England's first innings of 445 and then single-handedly destroyed the home team in the second.
He came up with nine for 59 as England was bowled out for 181, giving Sri Lanka an unexpected victory by 37 runs. The only other wicket to fall in the second innings was the run out of England captain Stewart.
Although Australia remained cricket's strongest team, it suffered a 2-1 series loss in India, where the home team won the first two matches by 179 runs and an innings within four days.
The West Indies made their first ever visit to South Africa and only got there after four days of negotiations at London's Heathrow airport after threatening to strike in a row over match fees.
Sadly for captain Brian Lara, one of the players at the center of the row with the West Indian federation, his team lost the first two of the five tests.
South Africa had a mixed season, squandering a 1-0 lead to lose the series against England 2-1. But it created some cricket history by winning the first Commonwealth Games tournament, beating the
favored Australians in the final of the one-day competition in Kuala Lumpur.
Zimbabwe gained a first test victory in Pakistan, and, with fog and fading light ruining play in the second test, was guaranteed at least a share of the three-match series.
In domestic competitions, Leicestershire won the English county championship for the third time after Surrey's big lead evaporated in the last few weeks while Western Australia beat Tasmania by seven wickets in the Sheffield Shield final after two successive failures in previous finals.
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