A brief history of cricket World Cup (part 2)
(Continued from part 1...)
The final
The final was held at Lord’s, the home of cricket, between West Indies and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746. With the likes of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson in the bowling line-up the Australians were looking good to give the Windies a tough time.
But Clive Lloyd, in a stunning display of batting, smashed the Australian bowlers for fours and sixes all-around the ground.
Lloyd’s brilliant ton with 12 fours and two sixes enabled his team to get to a winning total of 291.
Australia’s batsmen didn’t have any answer to Viv Richards’ brilliance in the field, who claimed several run outs in Australia’s run chase. West Indies won the final by 18 runs and were crowned World Champions for the first time.
The 1979 World Cup
England hosted the cricket World Cup for the second time in 1979.
The format of the tournament was the same, 60 over One Day matches, with both teams bowling at each other once. The two top performing teams from each group were to go through to the semi finals.
Eight teams were to appear in total, the six Test playing nations and two minor teams, the ICC inaugural trophy was held before the World cup as a qualifying round for the non-Test playing nations, Sri-Lanka and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Canada-c748 surfaced as a result.
The group stage
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 won all their matches in the group stage.
Sri-Lanka humiliated http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 in an upset.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 lost their only match against West Indies before thumping India and Sri-Lanka.
England was the highlight of the other group. They remained unbeaten in their group.
Australia missing all their key players because of the World Cricket Series suffered as they were knocked out at the group stage.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 and England made their way into the semis.
The semi finals
After an excellent run throughout the tournament, the Englishmen faced stiff competition against New Zealand at Old Trafford in the semi-final. They struggled to set a target of 222 for the Kiwis.
New Zealand having a number of all-rounders in the line-up was hoping to get through to the finals easily but the English bowlers restricted them to 212 to win the semi-final.
Pakistan facing the might of West Indies in the second semi-final at The Oval looked good for a little while when http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Zaheer-Abbas-c98435 were resolute in their 166 run partnership to chase down the Windies total of 293.
But it was none other than, Viv Richards, who devastated the middle-order with a fine spell of bowling to shatter Pakistan’s dream of winning the World Cup.
West Indies won by 42 runs to play England in the finals.
The final
West Indies went into the grand finale as favourites but England were in no mood to surrender.
The match got off to a dramatic start when Viv Richards saw wickets tumbling around him as he cemented his place on one end.
Richards was already on the crease when King came out to bat. West Indies were struggling at 99 for the loss of four wickets.
While Richards had plans to stabilize the innings King went berserk and blasted 86 off 66 balls while his partner went on to play a great knock of 138 runs.
Chasing a target of 287 the English openers were too defensive in their approach, despite having a long batting line-up they used up too many overs trying to conserve wickets.
An immaculate display of death bowling by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Joel-Garner-c67141 left the hosts high and dry as they slumped to 194 all out. They were 182 for 2 at one stage.
The Windies came out on top once again and at the time they seemed unbeatable.
(To be continued in part 3...)
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