Mumbai : The World Cup cricket started from 1975.. Officially the tournament was called as Prudential Cup as Prudential insurance , a financial company of England , sponsored the event. International Cricket Conference (ICC) organised the event.
This was the first major One Day International tournament to be held. Prior to this only 18 ODIs were being played. The tournament was played from June 7 and lasted till June 21.
Read : How the World Cup cricket came into being
Eight nations participated in this mega event. Six test playing nations of that time (Australia , England , West Indies , India , New Zealand & Pakistan) along with two Associate nations -- Sri Lanka and East Africa were split into two groups consisting four countries each. Each team were supposed to play the other three teams in the group once and the top two teams from each group is scheduled to qualify for the semi finals. Each match was of 60 overs per side.
England , New Zealand , West Indies and Australia qualified for the semis where England clashed with Australia while West Indies locked horns with New Zealand in the other semis. Australia and West Indies qualified for the Grand Finale.
In the finals West Indies beat Australia to lift the cup for the first time. It was mainly due to the Caribbean skipper Clive Lloyd who scored an unbeaten 102 and electrified fielding from Vivian Richards , who effected 5 run outs , that the Windies managed to trounce Aussies.
Dennis Amiss , of England , scored the first ton of the series and in reply to England's 344 / 4 with Amiss remaining undefeated on 137 in the inaugural game India finished at 132 for the loss of 3 wickets. The highlight of the Indian innings was Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar batted the entire innings and scored just 36 facing 174 deliveries with just a single hit to the fence.
Group A consisted of England , New Zealand , India and East Africa while Group B consisted of Pakistan , Australia , West Indies and Sri Lanka
Most Runs scored (by an individual) :
Glenn Turner of New Zealand who totalled 333 runs courtesy of his two centuries against East Africa (171 *) and 114 against India
Most Wickets taken (by an individual) :
Late Gary Gilmour of Australia who took 11 wickets. He played just the two matches - the semi finals against England where he destroyed the English batting order by conceding just 14 runs in his quota of 12 overs taking 6 wickets in the process. In the final against West Indies he finished with a figure of 5/48
Highest total (by a team) :
England with a total of 334 losing 4 wickets. against India in the inaugural match. Thanks to Denis Amiss's 137 who was supported by Fletcher (68) and Old (51)
Match of the tournament :
Pakistan vs West Indies in the group stage. Batting first , Pakistan scored 266 losing 7 wickets . Chasing 267 , West Indies were tottering at 5/99 at one stage and later at 9/203 before a miraculous 64 runs last wicket partnership between Deryck Murray and Andy Roberts saw the Caribbeans home
Squads :
- Australia : Ian Chappell (c) , Greg Chappell (vc) , Ross Edwards , Gary Gilmour , Dennis Lillee , Rick McCosker , Ashley Mallett , Rodney Marsh (wk) , Jeff Thomson , Allan Turner , Max Walker and Doug Walters
- East Africa : Harilal Shah (c) , Frasat Ali , Zulfiqar Ali , Yunus Badat , Hamish McLeod (wk) , Praful Mehta (wk) , John Nagenda , Parbhu Nana , Don Pringle , Mehmood Quaraishy , Ramesh Sethi , Jawahir Shah , Shiraz Sumar & Samuel Walusimbi
- England : Mike Denness (c) , Dennis Amiss , Geoff Arnold , Keith Fletcher , Tony Greig , Frank Hayes , John Jameson (wk) , Alan Knott (wk) , Peter Lever , Chris Old , John Snow , Derek Underwood and Barry Wood
- India : Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan (c) , Syed Abid Ali , Mohinder Amarnath , Bishen Singh Bedi , Farokh Engineer (wk) , Anshuman Gaekwad , Sunil Gavaskar , Karsan Ghavri , Madan Lal , Brijesh Patel , Eknath Solkar and Gundappa Viswanath
- New Zealand : Glenn Turner (c) , Lance Cairns , Richard Collinge , Barry Hadlee , Dayle Hadlee , Richard Hadlee , Brian Hastings , Geoff Howarth , Hedley Howarth , Brian McKechnie , John Morrison , John Parker (wk) and Ken Wadsworth (wk )
- Pakistan : Asif Iqbal (c) , Zaheer Abbas , Wasim Bari (wk) , Imran Khan , Majid Khan (vc) , Naseer Malik , Asif Masood , Javed Miandad , Pervez Mir , Mushtaq Mohammad , Sadiq Mohammad , Sarfraz Nawaz and Wasim Raja
- Sri Lanka : Anura Tennekoon (c) , Ajit de Silva , Somachandra de Silva , Ranjit Fernando (wk) , David Heyn , Lalith Kaluperuma , Duleep Mendis ,Tony Opatha , Mevan Pieris , Anura Ranasinghe , Michael Tissera , Bandula Warnapura and Sunil Wettimuny
- West Indies : Clive Lloyd (c) , Keith Boyce , Roy Fredericks , Lance Gibbs , Gordon Greenidge , Vanburn Holder , Bernard Julien , Alvin Kallicharran , Rohan Kanhai , Deryck Murray (wk) , Viv Richards and Andy Roberts
