And that was the case with the 1992 World Cup shirts when each of the nine nations wore the same design, but in their country’s unique colours – the Aussies in their yellow, England in powder blue, India in royal blue, Pakistan in light green, West Indies in rosewood red and so on.

Across the front of the shirt was each country’s name, while the shoulder featured the iconic rainbow design of blue, green, red and white stripes, which, if I recall, may have had something do with at least one of those colours being represented in each of the competing nation’s flags.  

There was a cracking photo taken before the tournament of every 1992 World Cup player that shows those uniforms off in all their glory.

2 – NO MINNOWS: what made the 1992 World Cup tournament so enjoyable was you could flick on the TV each day and there was every chance you knew who the two batsmen were and who was bowling.

The 1992 World Cup comprised the seven Test nations – Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the West Indies – plus the returning South Africa after apartheid and Zimbabwe.

Okay, I may not have known too many Zimbabwe players outside of Andy Flower and Eddo Brandes, but that’s two more than I know in the Ireland, United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and Scotland teams competing this year.

No disrespect to those teams, but it was hard to get too excited about Afghanistan v Scotland on Thursday, or Ireland v United Arab Emirates the previous day.

3 – PATEL OPENS THE BOWLING: I don’t remember much of New Zealand off-spinner Dipak Patel, but I do recall him opening the bowling against Australia in the first game of the World Cup at Eden Park.

It was a sensation at time and proved one of the masterstrokes of Kiwi captain Martin Crowe not only that day, but throughout the tournament.

Patel took 1-36 off 10 overs as the Aussies lost by 37 runs chasing 248, sparking a post-match ground invasion from the rabid Kiwi supporters.

4 - ONE-RUN THRILLER AT GABBA: the Australia-India game at the Gabba was decided by a matter of metres after India needed four off the last ball to win, or three to tie.

Facing Tom Moody, India’s Javagal Srikanth heaved the ball out to deep mid-wicket where it was dropped by Steve Waugh.

Waugh recovered, threw the ball into make-shift keeper David Boon, who ran out Venkatapathy Raju on what would have been the match-tieing third run.

The one-run win was the Aussies’ first of the tournament after losing their first two games to New Zealand and South Africa.

5 – BOONIE’S TON AGAINST THE WINDIES: back in 1992 the West Indies still had an aura about them, unlike these days.

I remember racing home from school to tune in to the Australia-West Indies match at the MCG and marvelling at a David Boon century.

Boon cracked 100 against Curtly Ambrose, Winston Benjamin and Anderson Cummins and co to set Australia on the path to a 57-run victory.

Unfortunately, that was the last game for the Aussies, who after going in as one of the favourites missed the semi-finals.

Until Aaron Finch’s 135 against England in this year’s opener, Boon’s ton against the Windies 23 years ago had been the only World Cup century made by an Australian on home soil. 

6 – AKRAM’S FAB FINAL: Pakistan’s Wasim Akram was always one of my favourite opposition players back in the day. Not sure why as I’ve never been able to bowl left-arm toe crushers at pace like him.

Akram’s performance in the 1992 World Cup final against England at the MCG in front of 87,000 reiterated just why I was such a big fan of his after he made a quickfire 33 off 18 balls and later snared three wickets.

I had always thought Akram took a hat-trick in the final, but it wasn’t the case.

He removed Ian Botham for a duck early - albeit a lucky caught behind decision - and then came back and bowled Allan Lamb with an absolute jaffer and Chris Lewis around the wicket in consecutive balls in his second spell.

With Akram taking man of the match honours, Pakistan won by 22 runs.

Oh, to be 11 again to be able to relive that magic month of cricket.

BLAST FROM THE PAST - 1992 WORLD CUP SQUADS:

AUSTRALIA

Allan Border (c)

David Boon

Ian Healy (wk)

Merv Hughes

Dean Jones

Craig McDermott

Geoff Marsh

Tom Moody

Bruce Reid

Mark Taylor

Peter Taylor

Mark Waugh

Steve Waugh

Mike Whitney

ENGLAND

Graham Gooch (c)

Ian Botham

Phillip DeFreitas

Neil Fairbrother

Graeme Hick

Richard Illingworth

Allan Lamb

Chris Lewis

Derek Pringle

Dermot Reeve

Gladstone Small

Robin Smith

Alec Stewart (wk)

Phil Tufnell

INDIA

Mohammed Azharuddin (c)

Subroto Banerjee

Sachin Tendulkar

Ajay Jadeja

Vinod Kambli

Kapil Dev

Sanjay Manjrekar

Kiran More (wk)

Manoj Prabhakar

Venkatapathy Raju

Ravi Shastri

Kris Srikkanth

Javagal Srinath

Pravin Amre

NEW ZEALAND

Martin Crowe (c)

Chris Cairns

Mark Greatbatch

Chris Harris

Andrew Jones

Gavin Larsen

John Wright

Rodney Latham

Danny Morrison

Dipak Patel

Ken Rutherford

Ian Smith (wk)

Murphy Su'a

Willie Watson

PAKISTAN

Imran Khan (c)

Aamir Sohail

Aaqib Javed

Ijaz Ahmed

Inzamam-ul-Haq

Iqbal Sikander

Javed Miandad

Moin Khan (wk)

Mushtaq Ahmed

Rameez Raja

Saleem Malik

Wasim Akram

Wasim Haider

Zahid Fazal

SOUTH AFRICA

Kepler Wessels (c)

Tertius Bosch

Hansie Cronje

Allan Donald

Omar Henry

Andrew Hudson

Peter Kirsten

Adrian Kuiper

Pat Symcox

Brian McMillan

Meyrick Pringle

Jonty Rhodes

Dave Richardson (wk)

Mark Rushmere

Richard Snell

SRI LANKA

Aravinda de Silva (c)

Don Anurasiri

Asanka Gurusinha

Chandika Hathurusingha

Sanath Jayasuriya

Ruwan Kalpage

Roshan Mahanama

Champaka Ramanayake

Arjuna Ranatunga

Graeme Labrooy

Athula Samarasekera

Hashan Tillakaratne (wk)

Pramodya Wickramasinghe

Kapila Wijegunawardene

WEST INDIES

Richie Richardson (c)

Curtly Ambrose

Keith Arthurton

Winston Benjamin

Anderson Cummins

Roger Harper

Desmond Haynes

Carl Hooper

Brian Lara

Gus Logie

Malcolm Marshall

Patrick Patterson

Phil Simmons

David Williams (wk)

ZIMBABWE

David Houghton (c)

Kevin Arnott

Eddo Brandes

Mark Burmester

Iain Butchart

Alistair Campbell

Andy Flower (wk)

Grant Flower

Wayne James

Malcolm Jarvis

Andrew Pycroft

Ali Shah

John Traicos

Andy Waller