1975 Cricket World Cup



The 1975 Cricket World Cup (officially called the Prudential Cup '75) was the first edition of the Cricket World Cup, organised by the International Cricket Conference (ICC) and was the first major limited overs One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament to be held. It was held from 7 to 21 June 1975 in England.

The tournament was sponsored by Prudential Assurance Company and had eight participating countries: the six Test-playing teams of the time (Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and the West Indies), plus leading Associate nations Sri Lanka and, for the only time, East Africa. The teams were divided into two groups of four, with each team playing the other teams in their group once; the top two from each group qualified for the semi-finals, with the winners of these matches meeting in the final. Each match consisted of 60 overs per team and was played in traditional white clothing and with red balls; all were played during the day and hence started early.

England, New Zealand, West Indies and Australia were the teams to qualify for the semi-finals, making this the only World Cup thus far in which no team from the Indian subcontinent made this stage. Australia defeated England and the West Indies beat New Zealand, before the West Indies, the pre-tournament favourites, defeated Australia in the final at Lord's by 17 runs to become the first World Cup winners.

The opening match of the tournament featured one of the most bizarre batting efforts in one-day history, by India's Sunil Gavaskar. After England scored 334/4, with Dennis Amiss making 137, Gavaskar batted through the full 60 overs for 36 not out, prompting several pitch invasions from unhappy Indian fans.

Background
The first multilateral competition at international level was the 1912 Triangular Tournament in England. This was played between the three test nations at the time in England, Australia and South Africa. But the weather and the public antipathy saw the concept of the tournament scrapped after only one edition. The first instance of an one-day match to occur was in 1962 when four English country-cricket teams filled in a gap to play in a limited overs knockout competition which was won by Northmaptonshire who defeated Leicestershire by five wickets.

Nine years later in 1971, the first One Day International took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) as a replacement for the third test of the 1970–71 Ashes series between Australia and England. This was due to the deluge of rain that had affected the match for the first three days of the test. The match was a forty-over match with each over being eight deliveries. After England made 190 from 39.4 overs, Australia chase down the target at a steady rate to secure the match with 42 balls remaining. Two years later at Lord's during the 1973 Women's Cricket World Cup, plans was set up for a men's tournament to take place in 1975 which involved all of the test nations at the time in two group stage with the top two in each group qualifying for the semi-final before the final at Lord's.

Format
The format of the 1975 Cricket World Cup had the eight teams split into two groups of four teams each, with each team playing all other teams in their group. These matches took place from June 7 to June 14. The top two teams from each group then advanced to the semi-finals on June 18, where the winners qualified for the final at Lord's on June 21. If any of the matches had rain throughout the day, then they could use one of their two reserve days that had been set for each match. The first World Cup saw seven different venues being used all across England.

Participants
Eight teams was invited to compete at the World Cup. Six of those nations being full members while the other two (Sri Lanka and East Africa) was invited to fill in the remaining two spots. South Africa was meant one of the teams in the tournament but due to the apartheid in the country, the team had to withdraw from competing until the 1992 edition.

Venues
The announcement of the venues started on 26 July 1973 when they revealed that the tournament would be played with Lord's being suited as the venue for the final. The rest of the venues that would be revealed happened on 5 November 1974 with the scheduling for the 1975 Prudential Cup being revealed alongside the five counties tournaments that happened during the 1975 season with Headingley and the The Oval being confirmed as the semi-final hosts.

Pre-tournament
Heading into the first Cricket World Cup, the West Indies was predicted to be the favourites via the betting agency in Ladbrokes at 9-4. This was followed by England at 11-4 with Pakistan and Australia in third and fourth respectively with East Africa last in the betting odds at 1500-1. Before the tournament, the teams played in a few warm-up matches against English county sides to get used to the conditions. Most of the national teams had wins against the county sides with East Africa, Sri Lanka and India losing at least one match against a county side.

Eight days before the World Cup, the International Cricket Conference (ICC) in a unanimous decision delarced that any of the balls that went over the batsman head to be a called a wide due to the fast short-pitched bowling.

Group stage
The opening round of matches took place on 7 June with four matches being played. The match at Lord's saw England delievered the highest score by a team in the 60 over match with 334 runs being scored. Dennis Amiss top-scored for the English with 137 from 147 balls as he had aid from Keith Fletcher and Chris Old who each recorded a half-century. In response Sunil Gavaskar batted through the entire innings for only 36 runs in which Gulabrai Ramchand thought that he was doing some batting practice. Australia opened their campaign with a win against Pakistan at Headingley with a 73 run victory. This was due to Dennis Lillee five wicket haul which brought Pakistan's hope of an win crashing down as they collapsed from 181/4 to be all out for 205. Earlier, Ross Edwards top-scored for Australia with 80 as he aided the Australians in getting 94 runs from the last 13 overs to bring Australia to 278/7 from their sixty overs. The other two matches saw easy wins for the West Indies and New Zealand. For Glenn Turner, he occupied the crease during the whole New Zealand innings as he top-scored with 171 as New Zealand won by 180 runs over East Africa. The West Indies took a nine wicket victory over Sri Lanka as the Sri Lankans became the first team to score under 100 runs in an ODI.

Semi-finals
In the best World Cup performance to date by a bowler, Gary Gilmour took 6/14, as England were bowled out for 93 (36.2 overs), after having fallen to 37/7. Australia initially suffered a collapse just as dramatic, falling to 39/6, before Gilmour (28 from 28 balls, 5 fours) brought them home in a fantastic all-round performance.

The West Indies won the toss and sent New Zealand in to bat first. New Zealand batted well against the bowling at first, reaching 98/1. However, when captain Glenn Turner (36 from 74 balls, 3 fours) and Geoff Howarth (51 from 93 balls, 3 fours) fell, breaking a second-wicket partnership of 90 runs, New Zealand lost 9/60 to fall to 158 (all out, 52.2 overs). The West Indies responded, with Alvin Kallicharan (72 from 92 balls, 7 fours, 1 six) and Gordon Greenidge (55 from 95 balls, 9 fours, 1 six) sharing a second-wicket partnership of 125 runs, that brought the West Indies to their target.

Final
In the final, the West Indies beat Australia by 17 runs, after an accomplished innings from captain Clive Lloyd (102 from 85 balls, 12 fours, 2 sixes). The Australian innings was marked by top-order batsmen being run out when going for runs after misfields. A total of five of their team were run out, three by Vivian Richards. There was no 'Man of the Series' awarded in 1975.