Mumbai : The second edition of the World Cup was staged by England once again and it was held in 1979. The format remained the same as of the previous edition. With four teams were placed in two groups and the top two teams qualifying for the semis.
Group A comprised of England , Australia , Pakistan and Canada where as Group B contained West Indies , New Zealand , India and Sri Lanka
Prudential Insurance Company , like 1975, sponsored the tournament. Thus it was called the Prudential Cup. The tournament started from June 9 and continued till June 23rd.
In the group stages, England and Pakistan qualified from Group A while West Indies, the defending champions, and New Zealand prevailed from Group B
The shocking result in the group stages was when Sri Lanka, a minnows at that time, trounced India, a Test playing nation, by 47 runs. India became the only Test playing nation failing to win a single match in the World Cup. Losing all the three matches.
Read : When Lloyd scored a timely century
In the semis West Indies defeated Pakistan while England got the better of New Zealand in a thriller.
In the Grand Finale, it was Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards who proved his worth. West Indies, batting first, were reeling at 4/99, Richards(138*) along with Colis King(86) steadied the ship and brought the tally to 286 losing 9 wickets. Chasing 287 to clinch the World Cup, England began on a positive note but slow in speed. Openers Mike Brearley and Geoff Boycott put on 129 for the opening wicket. Graham Gooch played a cameo at number 4 scoring 32 of 28 balls to accelarate the required run rate. The remaining batsmen fell like ninepins with England from 2/183 skittling at 194. The " Big Bird" Joel Garner was the chief wrecker scalping 5 wickets conceeding 38 runs. Thus West Indies lifted the cup for the second time in a row.
Most runs scored (by an individual) :
Gordon Greenidge of West Indies who totalled 253 runs courtesy a fine undefeated 106 against India
Most wickets taken (by an individual) :
Mike Hendrick of England with 10 wickets from 5 matches coutesy 4/15 against Pakistan
Highest Total (by a team) :
West Indies with a total of 293 losing 6 wickets against Pakistan in the semis.
Lowest Total (by a team) :
Canada with a total of 45 in 41 overs against England
Match of the tournament :
Semi Final ; England vs New Zealand . Chasing 222 to make it to the Finals, the Kiwis lost wickets at regular intervals with the asking rate began to climb. 14 were required of the last over, New Zealand managed to get only 4 runs to lose by 9 runs.
Squads :
- Australia : Kim Hughes (c) , Allan Border , Gary Cosier , Rick Darling , Geoff Dymock , Andrew Hilditch , Rodney Hogg , Alan Hurst , Trevor Laughlin , Jeff Moss , Graeme Porter , Kevin Wright (wk) and Graham Yallop
- Canada : Bryan Mauricette (c) (wk) , Charles Baksh , Robert Callender, Christopher Chappell , Franklyn Dennis , Cornelius Henry , Tariq Javed , Cecil Marshall , Jitendra Patel , Glenroy Sealy , Martin Stead , John Valentine and John Vaughan
- England : Mike Brearley (c) , Ian Botham, Geoffrey Boycott, Phil Edmonds, Mike Gatting, Graham Gooch , David Gower, Mike Hendrick, Wayne Larkins, Geoff Miller , Chris Old, Derek Randall, Bob Taylor (wk) and Bob Willis
- India : Srinivas Venkataraghavan (c) , Mohinder Amarnath . Bishan Singh Bedi. Anshuman Gaekwad , Sunil Gavaskar, Karsan Ghavri , Kapil Dev, Surinder Khanna (wk) , Brijesh Patel , Dilip Vengsarkar and Gundappa Viswanath
- New Zealand : Mark Burgess (c), Lance Cairns , Ewen Chatfield , Jeremy Coney , Bruce Edgar, Richard Hadlee, Geoff Howarth, Warren Lees (wk), Brian McKechnie, John Morrison , Warren Stott , Gary Troup, Glenn Turner and John Wright
- Pakistan : Asif Iqbal (c) , Zaheer Abbas, Sikander Bakht, Wasim Bari (wk) , Imran Khan , Majid Khan, Javed Miandad, Sadiq Mohammad , Sarfraz Nawaz, Mudassar Nazar, Wasim Raja and Haroon Rashid
- Sri Lanka : Anura Tennekoon (c), Ajit de Silva, Somachandra de Silva, Stanley de Silva, Roy Dias, Ranjan Gunatilleke, Sunil Jayasinghe (wk), Ranjan Madugalle, Duleep Mendis, Tony Opatha, Sudath Pasqual , Bandula Warnapura (vc) and Sunil Wettimuny
- West Indies : Clive Lloyd (c) , Colin Croft , Joel Garner, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Michael Holding, Alvin Kallicharran, Collis King, Deryck Murray (wk) , Viv Richards, Andy Roberts, Larry Gomes, Faoud Bacchus and Malcolm Marshall
