When West Indies skipper Clive Lloyd grounded Geoffrey Boycott's catch
in the 1979 ICC World Cup final at Lord's, there were some whispers that
the mistake was deliberate as the English opener's slow batting was
helping the Caribbean cause. Even Lloyd's teammate Vivian Richards later
remarked it was "contrived", though the captain denied it.
While
the dropped chance may spark some light-hearted debate, none can doubt
the awesome West Indies domination of the eight-team tournament with an
all-win record as the Calypso charmers retained the trophy they had
bagged four years earlier in the inaugural edition.
Held in the
backdrop of the Kerry Packer controversy, the tournament - called the
Prudential Cup after its sponsors Prudential Assurance Company - had a
depleted field.
Australia left out stars like Greg Chappell,
Denis Lillee, Doug Walters and Rod Marsh, while England played without
Tony Greig, Dennis Amiss, Alan Knott, John Snow and Derek Underwood -
who all took part in the World Series Cricket organised by the media
tycoon as a counter to establishment cricket after he failed to get
exclusive broadcast rights of Australia's home Test matches in 1976.
However, Pakistan and the West Indies included their players who did duty in the WSC.
Another
first for the World Cup was the qualifying tournament for associates
that preceded the tournament. Fourteen ICC associates competed and Sri
Lanka and Canada made the cut.
The tourney - comprising 15 games
staged over six grounds - saw an impressive show from New Zealand, and
they were unlucky not to go through to the final.
In the semifinal against England, the Kiwis were on course to a victory, but their luck somehow betrayed them.
After
restricting England to 221 for eight, with Richard Hadlee and C.B.
Troop sending down disciplined stuff, New Zealand started off smoothly,
with John Wright (69) holding one end up. But to New Zealand's dismay,
Wright was run out.
However, the visitors recouped and reached
195 for seven, needing 27 runs from three overs with wicketkeeper
batsman Warren Lees and Lance cairns in the middle.
But England
fast bowler Mike Hendrick, limping from an injury, turned the game
around by evicting the duo. New Zealand needed 14 from the last over but
managed only four.
The England-West Indies final June 23 at Lord's saw some great individual performances.
England's twin blunders - opting to field after winning the toss and failure to include a fifth specialist bowler proved costly.
With
the West Indies at 99 for four, England captain Mike Brearley brought
on Graham Gooch, Boycott and Wayne Larkins to perform the duties of the
fifth bowler.
Vivian Richards and Collis King went after the bowling and the troika conceded as many as 86 runs in their 12 overs.
Richards
came up with a swashbuckling unbeaten 138, studded with 11 boundaries
and three sixes to propel the West Indies to 286 for nine and earn the
man of the match award.
England openers Brearley (64) and Boycott
(57) started the chase by stitching together a 129-run partnership, but
as they mostly plodded, the asking rate continued to climb up. Boycott
took all of 17 overs to reach double figures.
However, with
Graham Gooch and Dereck Randall at the crease, the home side seemed
perfectly placed to launch the final assault at 183 for two, but 'Big
Bird' Joel Garner (5/38) snuffed out any possibility of a close finish
by running through the heart of the England batting.
Losing the
last eight wickets with the addition of only 11 on the board, England
were skittled out for 194. The West Indies retained the title with a
92-run win.
India had a disastrous campaign, losing all three
group games. The batsmen could not last the full quota of 60 overs in
any of the matches, while the bowlers got only seven wickets and were
hammered by the opponent willowers for 610 runs.
What was more humiliating was India went down to Sri Lanka, who at the time were not even a Test playing nation.
Volley
of questions were raised in the aftermath of the tournament regarding
the selection of Srinivas Venkataraghavan as captain, and the omission
of Syed Kirmani and Sandeep Patil from the squad.
However, in
this hour of despair, a ray of hope was the emergence of the Haryana
allrounder Kapil Dev Nikhanj. Though, he never really set the stands on
fire, the 20-year-old displayed an immaculate temperament for the
shorter version of the game despite his inexperience.
Cricket
pundits predicted Kapil would be the future star for India, and time
only proved how perfect they were, as he led India to an unbelievable
World Cup triumph only four years later.
(Kushal Chakraborty is a freelancer. He can be contacted at [email protected])
