On May 31, 1999, Bangladesh — playing in their debut World Cup — beat tournament favourites Pakistan by 62 runs at Northampton. Khaled Mahmud (3/31 and 27 with the bat) was Player of the Match. The result remains shrouded in match-fixing suspicion that Pakistan's later Justice Qayyum report partially supported.
Bangladesh were World Cup debutants, ranked outside the top-ten ODI sides. Pakistan had already qualified for the Super Six and had nothing to play for; their Pakistan-Bangladesh fixture was a dead rubber. Match-fixing allegations were already swirling around the Pakistan team after the 1990s scandal era.
Pakistan had won six of seven group games. Bangladesh, in their first World Cup, had been thrashed by everyone except Scotland (who they had beaten). The Pakistan match was their last chance to leave a mark.
Pakistan, having qualified for the Super Six with full carry-forward points, walked into the dead-rubber Group B match against Bangladesh as overwhelming favourites. Wasim Akram won the toss and chose to field — eyebrow-raising in itself. Bangladesh struggled early but Akram Khan (42), Shahriar Hossain (39) and Khaled Mahmud (27) carried them to 223 for 9 in 50 overs. Pakistan's chase began with Saqlain Mushtaq taking 5 for 35 — wait, that was the bowling, not batting. Pakistan's batting collapsed against Khaled Mahmud (3/31) and the part-timers. Five run-outs (three of them in disastrous fashion) compounded the slide. Pakistan were 161 all out in 44.3 overs. Bangladesh won by 62 runs. Wasim Akram's post-match line — 'I'm happy we lost to our brothers; they'll be ready for Test status in another year or so' — fed years of conspiracy theory. Justice Qayyum's 2000 report into Pakistan match-fixing flagged the result as 'doubtful' though no definitive verdict.
Wasim Akram wins toss, chooses to field
Bangladesh 223/9 in 50 (Akram Khan 42)
Pakistan 42/5 in 13th over
Five Pakistan run-outs in the chase
Pakistan 161 all out — Bangladesh win by 62
Wasim Akram: 'I'm happy we lost to our brothers'
May 31, 1999 — morning
Wasim wins toss, chooses to field.
Bangladesh innings
223/9 in 50 overs.
Pakistan chase
42/5 in 13 overs; eventually 161 all out.
Result
Bangladesh win by 62 runs — biggest upset in World Cup history at the time.
2000
Justice Qayyum report flags match as 'doubtful'.
“I'm happy we lost to our brothers. They'll be ready for Test status in another year or so.”
“We had nothing to lose. We just played our cricket.”
Bangladesh's win was decisive in their successful campaign for Test status, granted in 2000. Justice Qayyum's report into Pakistan match-fixing the same year flagged the result as 'doubtful' alongside other matches but did not produce definitive proof. Pakistan went on to lose the World Cup final to Australia at Lord's eight days later.
The biggest upset in World Cup history at the time — and one of the most shadowed by long-running suspicion of having been fixed.
Bangladesh became a Test nation the next year. The match remains a cricketing legend in Bangladesh — 'the day everything began'. For Pakistan it remains an embarrassment with a permanent question mark; whenever an inexplicable Pakistan defeat happens, it is invoked.
England
1932-08-12
In August 1932 the MCC selectors confirmed Douglas Jardine as England's captain for the 1932-33 tour of Australia, a decision contested at the highest levels of English cricket and one that — combined with Plum Warner's appointment as tour manager — would set the conditions for the Bodyline series.
England
1934-03-21
On 21 March 1934 Douglas Jardine wrote to The Cricketer that he had 'neither the desire nor the intention' of playing in the upcoming home Ashes series. The announcement, taken as a quiet resignation, removed the architect of Bodyline from the field before Australia returned to England — a precondition Australia's Board had implicitly demanded.
England / Gloucestershire
1937-11-15
In November 1937 Wally Hammond — the leading professional batsman of his era — was accepted by MCC as an amateur, opening the door to the England captaincy he received six months later for the 1938 Ashes. The change crystallised inter-war debates about the amateur-professional divide and the unwritten rule that England's captain be amateur.