Throwback Thursday | Unlikely heroes Bradshaw and Browne help Windies clinch 2004 Champions Trophy title

Throwback Thursday | Unlikely heroes Bradshaw and Browne help Windies clinch 2004 Champions Trophy title

no photo

When Browne and Bradshaw pulled off a remarkable heist

|

SportsCafe

Welcome to the series where we present you a moment, a game in history that has shaped the way the sport has been played, in our weekly segment ‘Throwback Thursday.' This week we look at the 2004 Champions Trophy Final, where Ian Bradshaw and Courtney Browne pulled off an impossible heist.

It’s September 25, 2004, and we’re at the ever-so-beautiful Kennington Oval in London, which is currently packed with 25,000 people, all of whom had come to the stadium in the afternoon in the hope of seeing their country lift its first-ever ICC trophy. With 8 balls left in the game, with their country’s opponents, West Indies, needing just 4 runs to win, a vast majority of the home fans are anxious, fidgety and distressed - some even heartbroken, having given up, already -  but there are also a tiny few who are clinging to the non-existential hope that their team can still fulfil the prophecy that looked inevitable of coming true less than an hour ago. All 25,000 people have their hopes pinned on Alex Wharf who has, up until this point, been wicketless in the game and his job, at the least, is to knock over No.10 batsman Ian Bradshaw, who is batting flawlessly on 30*. But before we could play out the ending moments of this enchanting encounter, it is important to understand the chain of events that led to this improbable situation. 

 © YouTube

By 2004, the stocks of both West Indies and England had fallen so much that the two countries were reduced to merely nothing more than ordinary sides with a couple of great individuals (in the case of the Windies, one of the greatest in the world). Their legacy and reputation had dwindled so much that for almost a decade, they were two sides who were automatically filtered out when it came for the ‘picks’ to win a major tournament. Thus, naturally, heading into the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy - which happened a year after the 2003 World Cup that was dominated by Australia - both the Windies and England were slapped with little chance of winning the tournament; in many ways, both the sides were written off. 

Given the tournament was set to follow the same ‘three teams per group, four groups in total’ format that was seen in the previous edition in 2002, where the table topper from each group progressed to the semi-final, there was little hope, if any, that there would be a ‘surprise entrant’ who would end up challenging for the title. Despite being the hosts, England, who had won just 32 of the 65 ODIs they had played since the turn of 2002, were seen as a side that simply did not have the firepower to topple the big sides in crunch situations, while the West Indies were teetering at 8th position in the ICC ODI rankings, only ahead of Zimbabwe, Kenya and Bangladesh. These were also two sides who had failed to even make the ‘Super Six’ stage in the 2003 World Cup - for different reasons, of course - and coincidentally were both comprehensively beaten by New Zealand in a tri-series which served as a warm-up for the Champions Trophy. So it was not a surprise that only a negligible number of people touted the two to even be dark horses.

So then, how did two sides - as we can see from our big moment at the top - who absolutely stood no chance before the tournament, end up playing against each other in the final in a competition that had superior teams in the form of Australia, India, South Africa and Sri Lanka? Well, sport, at times, can be ‘freaky’ and this Champions Trophy was sure one of the freakiest tournaments of all time. Having demonstrated the supranormal ability to completely flip the ‘on paper’ narrative of matches in the past, the sport of cricket, on the tenth day of the tournament, i.e. on September 17, 2004, decided to cast a spell that would go on to change the entire course of the competition.

A five-day period as mad as a hatter saw England and the Windies first upset the higher-ranked teams in their groups, Sri Lanka and South Africa, respectively, to qualify for the semis, after which they pulled off two more extraordinary upsets in the semi-final - England, remarkably, against all odds, downing Australia and the Windies beating Pakistan - to set up a date with each other in the Final at the Kennington Oval in London. The lusus naturae aside, the two sides also had ballistic individual performances from the likes of Trescothick, Gayle, Flintoff, Sarwan and Chanderpaul that helped them get to where they eventually got - the final.

On paper, heading into the final, the two sides looked evenly matched, but what the Windies had little idea about was the fact that they had to deal with a 12th man in the form of home support in the Grand Finale - something they hadn’t encountered all tournament. Throughout the competition, England, despite not being the strongest team in the tournament, were given the extra push by the home crowd that belted their hearts out every time their team played and that played a pretty decisive role in them getting over the line against their arch-rivals Australia. On top of that, there was also the notion that the Windies ‘had it easy’ en route to the final which was, to an extent, true, given that an erratic Pakistan side was who they had to dust off to reach the summit; England, on the other hand, had the tougher job of downing the best sides in the world. 

So, the day of the final beckoned and the Oval was packed. There were 25,000 English fans inside the stadium - and thousands more outside - who travelled from all over the country in the hope of watching their nation potentially lift their first-ever ICC Trophy. However, the home side did not get off to the greatest of starts: both Solanki and Vaughan departed and the dismissals of Collingwood and Flintoff an hour or so later meant that all hope rested on the shoulders of one man, Marcus Trescothick. And, despite not getting any support from the other, the Somerset-man batted and batted and batted and it was only in the 48th over, he departed after scoring a fine 104; England ended up with 217 in the first innings and Trescothick, himself, had accounted for 48% of the team’s runs. 

On the outlook, 218 looked like a pretty doable task for the Windies, but they had no idea what was soon about to hit them. Wavell Hinds departed first, with the team score 19, and both Sarwan and Gayle, in the next six overs, followed suit. But more than the wicket, it was the sheer hostility of the crowd and the enormity of the occasion that was starting to get the better of the Caribbean side; with every wicket, the cheers got louder and with every passing minute, the target of 218 started to look more and more like 318. Lara and Chanderpaul steadied the ship for a while but with the score 72/3, a tragedy befell - in an astounding middle-order implosion, the Windies lost their next five wickets for 75 runs and in the blink of an eye, they were reduced to 147/8, still needing 71 more runs to win, with no recognized batsmen at their disposal. 

Together for the Windies, holding the responsibility of getting the team over the line, were Courtney Browne and Ian Bradshaw who, between them, before the start of the final, had combinedly scored 211 runs at an average of 11.72 in ODI cricket. Thus, unsurprisingly, with the floodlights having taken full effect, Kennington Oval was on party mode; fans in the crowd were downing beers like there was no tomorrow, and the English players on the field, too, gave the impression that they were already fantasizing the prospect of lifting the trophy in an hour. 

What the 25,000 English fans in the stands and the 11 English players on the field didn’t know, however, was that the two batsmen in the middle, who looked like they wouldn’t last more than two overs in a second division club game, had no idea of giving up. Like Trescothick, Bradshaw and Browne batted and batted and batted and took every run that came their way, regardless of how it came. For every run that came off their bats, a thousand English spectators went quiet and within an hour, a Kennington Oval that looked like it was in the middle of a bender gave the impression that it was now mourning the death of a loved one; the stadium was dead silent. While Bradshaw and Browne became confident every time the ball hit the bat, proportionally and parallelly, they were the English bowlers and fielders who became increasingly more frustrated, anxious, angry and hopeless, for they were seeing their dream vanish right in front of their eyes. Within no time, the equation that once read 71 needed off 99 balls with two wickets in hand had been brought down to 4 needed off 8 balls and the Windies now had the finishing line in their sights. So that brings us to the moment. 

With the duty of pulling off a miracle for England is Alexander George Wharf, who has not taken a wicket in his last 106 balls in the tournament, while the man with the easier job in hand is southpaw Ian Bradshaw, who knows that he is one hit away from becoming a Caribbean hero who will never be forgotten. Wharf knows that one loose delivery from his hands will crush the hopes of a nation that was certainly an hour ago that it was going to lift its first-ever major trophy, while Bradshaw knows that one clean hit from his willow would restore pride back for the Windies, the fallen giants, who have not won an ICC Trophy in 25 years. Also anxiously peeking at the proceedings is none other than Brian Charles Lara, who knows that he could leave a legacy behind not just as a batsman, but also as a captain if things go his side’s way for just one more delivery. One ball is about to decide if 25,000 people in the stands go home happy or in tears and, on top of that, also determine which of these two fallen kingdoms was going to rise from the ashes against all odds. This is it.

Welcome to a moment in history

Get updates! Follow us on

Open all