History of the World Cup

Clive Lloyd lifts the first world cup-Australia vs WI final Lords WC 1975

LONDON, (Reuters) – Brief history of the cricket World  Cup ahead of the 2011 edition which starts on Feb 19.

1975, England
Fine weather blessed the first global one-day tournament  culminating in an unforgettable final between West Indies and  Australia at Lord’s.
Striking the ball with relaxed brutality, West Indies’  captain Clive Lloyd tamed an attack headed by the pace and fury  of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson to score 102 from 85 balls. He  was ably assisted by the 39-year-old Rohan Kanhai, a late  replacement for his injured contemporary Garfield Sobers. Kanhai  contributed 55 to West Indies’ 291 for eight from their 60  overs.

Clive Lloyd lifts the first world cup-Australia vs WI final Lords WC 1975
Clive Lloyd lifts the first world cup-Australia vs WI final Lords WC 1975

Australia captain Ian Chappell led a spirited reply with 62  before he fell victim to one of three runouts effected by the  electric reflexes of Viv Richards. Lillee and Thomson added 41  for the final wicket before Australia were finally dismissed for  274 at twilight on the longest day of the year.

1979, England
Peace was brokered with Australian entrepreneur Kerry  Packer, whose rebel World Series had split world cricket,  shortly before the second World Cup.
Australia still chose not to select any of the players who  had signed for Packer but West Indies did and a team who were to  rule world cricket throughout the next decade demolished England  in the final.
Richards, then the world’s number one batsman, stroked an  imperious 138 and Collis King struck a whirlwind 86. Although  England captain Mike Brearley and Geoff Boycott put on 129 for  the first wicket, they took up 38 of the 60 overs. After their  dismissals, the giant Joel Garner ran through the middle order  with a series of unplayable yorkers to take five wickets in 11  balls and give his team victory by 92 runs.

1983, England
Richards seemed intent on winning the final against  underdogs India on his own after West Indies had been set a  modest 184 to win.
He struck seven boundaries in his 33 from 28 balls before  top-edging a hook which India captain Kapil Dev, running away  from the pitch towards the boundary at mid-wicket, coolly  collected.
West Indies imploded thereafter, with India recording a  famous 43-run victory which was to have profound implications at  home where one-day cricket quickly superseded the test game as  the most popular form of the sport.

1987, India and Pakistan
England appeared to be cruising to victory in the final  against Australia at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens when Mike Gatting  tried a reverse sweep off opposing captain Allan Border’s first  delivery and lobbed a simple catch.
A well-drilled and disciplined Australia side went on to win  by seven runs with the core of the team who later thrashed  England in the 1989 Ashes series and eventually succeeded West  Indies as unofficial world test champions.
Because of the shorter daylight hours on the sub-continent  all matches were played over 50 overs, now the standard length,  instead of 60.

1992, Australia and New Zealand
Famously urged by their captain Imran Khan to “fight like  cornered tigers”, Pakistan rebounded from imminent elimination  in the opening round to defeat England in the final at the  Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Imran, the greatest player to emerge from Pakistan, scored  72 batting at number three in his final match for his country.  He also took the final wicket after his protege Wasim Akram had  blown away Ian Botham, Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis.
Coloured clothing, floodlights and a white ball, all  pioneered in World Series cricket, were finally introduced into  the tournament.

1996, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, with the explosive Sananth Jayasuriya at the top  of the order and Muttiah Muralitharan bewitching opposing  batsmen with his prodigious powers of spin, proved worthy  champions.
The Sri Lankans had demonstrated before the tournament that  they could chase down totals previously thought beyond reach and  they exploited the fielding restrictions at the start of the  innings by attacking from the first ball.
Aravinda da Silva, their most accomplished batsman, scored  an assured unbeaten century in the seven-wicket win over  Australia in the final in Lahore.

1999, England, Wales and Scotland
Australia, the world’s best test side, were in danger of  elimination in the group stages and again in the Super Six round  where 120 not out from captain Steve Waugh, dropped on 56 by  Herschelle Gibbs, ensured victory over South Africa.
Then, in a semi-final between the same teams, South Africa  needed only one run with four balls remaining in the final over  with their best one-day batsman Lance Klusner on strike. A  panicky runout tied an epic match which put Australia through by  virtue of their superior run rate in the previous round.
Australia made no contest of the final against Pakistan,  taking barely 4-1/2 hours to overwhelm the 1992 champions.

2003, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya
Australia’s new one-day captain Ricky Ponting struck eight  sixes in his 140 not out in the final against India as his team  scaled new heights with a relentless 125-run victory.
The Australians became the first team to win three World  Cups and took their unbeaten run in the tournament to 16.
England refused to play in Zimbabwe, whose two leading  players Andy Flower and Henry Olonga wore black armbands when  they played against Kenya to protest against “the death of  democracy in our beloved Zimbabwe”.

2007, West Indies
Australia, fresh from a 5-0 Ashes series win over England,  systematically destroyed all opposition throughout the  Caribbean, finishing with victory over Sri Lanka in a  rain-shortened final at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown,  Barbados.
Adam Gilchrist bettered Ponting’s record tally in a final  with a typically audacious 149. Two other Australian giants,  Matthew Hayden and Glenn McGrath, were the leading run-scorer  and wicket-taker respectively in the tournament.
The tournament was overshadowed by the death of popular  Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer at the age of 58 in his hotel room in  Jamaica after his team had unexpectedly lost to Ireland. Police  launched a murder investigation which led nowhere and a jury  later returned an open verdict.