ICC World Cup 2019
Part 21 - 1975 Prudential Cup
Read previous post of this blog series. Please check the below links
History of One day Cricket:
Before 1971 cricket tournaments are nothing but the test matches. Teams will play 5 days completely. Most of the games end with draw. Like that England went to Australia to play a test series. Third test match between them were held at MCC. Unfortunately first three days could not able to play due to rain. On fourth day umpires decided to called off the match. But they doesnt want to cheat the crowd flodded over MCC. Finally they limit the overs to 40 each and each over contains 8 balls. Australia won the first ever ODI match on 5th January 1975 against England. Both teams played with the same test uniform white jersey and the red ball. First time in history audience witnessed a result in cricket match. This leads to the evolution of One day cricket with 60 overs each side. Unfortunately till 1975 world cup only 18 matches played in ODI that too among test playing nations.
One day International needs some push to reach among cricket fans. Thats how 1975 world cup cricket came. It was sponsored by Prudential Assurance Company. Hence it was called as "Prudential Cup". June is the best month to play cricket at England. Moreover England has the capability of conducting the tournament. Eight teams were participated in that world cup. Among that Six were directly qualified because of test playing nations. Two teams were honourably invited to play that tournament. Its a 60 over side match each over comprise 8 balls. Round Robin method at group stage. Each group consists 4 teams. Top two will qualify for Semi finals. Then Winners will play at Finals.
Participated Countries:
Test Playing Nations
England, West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, India and Pakistan
Invited non test playing Nations
Srilanka and East Africa
Group A: England, New Zealand, India and East Africa
Group B: Australia, West Indies, Pakistan and Srilanka
From Group A England won all the 3 matches and finish as top. New Zealand won 2 matches as second top. While India registered their first world cup win against East Africa by 10 wickets. Guest team East Africa lost all the matches.
From Gorup B West Indies won all the matches. Australia won 2 matches, Pakistan beat Srilanka by 192 runs and registered their first win. Another guest team Srilanka lost all the matches.
Semifinals:
Both the semifinals ends up with low scoring game. England faced Australia but went all out for 93 runs. Even Australia completed the chase 29th over with 6 wickets loss.
Another Semi between West Indies and New Zealand went one sided. Strong team West Indies won comfortably by 5 wickets by chasing 159 runs at 40th over.
Finals:
First ever World cup finals held at London. Australia and West Indies became the first finalist of world cup. West Indies batted first and scored a mammoth of 291 runs with loss of 8 wickets. West Indies captain Clive Lloyd scored a brilliant 102 runs from 85 balls which is one of the fast century at that time. Australia chased the target and came very closer. But Aussie went all out for 274 runs at 58th over. West Indies won the first ever Prudential World cup by 17 runs.
Most Runs: Glenn Turner (Nz) with 333 runs with highest 171* runs
Most Wickets: Gary Gilmour (Aus) with 11 wickets with 6/14 as best
Interesting Moment:
A Marathon Innings in Limited Overs
We have heard about India's greatest test player Sunil Gavaskar. It was the inauguration match of the tournament between England and India. England batted first and scored 334 runs with the help of Dennis Amiss 137 runs. India started the chase. They scored only 132 at the end of 60 overs with loss of 3 wickets. Sunil Gavaskar played a slowest innings in one day matches. He batted 60 over fully and remains not out with 36 runs. His slowest innings still seeing as one of the weird innings in ODI.
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