Before the first Cricket World Cup
The
first ever international cricket match was played between Canada and the United States, on the 24 and 25 September 1844. However, the first credited
Test match was played in 1877 between
Australia and
England, and the two teams competed regularly for
The Ashes in subsequent years.
South Africa was admitted to Test status in 1889.
[5] Representative cricket teams were selected to
tour each other, resulting in bilateral competition. Cricket was also included as an
Olympic sport at the
1900 Paris Games, where
Great Britain defeated
France to win the
gold medal.
[6] This was the only appearance of cricket at the
Summer Olympics.
The first multilateral competition at international level was the
1912 Triangular Tournament, a Test cricket tournament played in England between all three Test-playing nations at the time: England, Australia and South Africa. The event was not a success: the summer was exceptionally wet, making play difficult on damp uncovered pitches, and attendances were poor, attributed to a "surfeit of cricket".
[7] In subsequent years, international Test cricket has been generally been organised as bilateral series: a multilateral Test tournament was not organised again until the quadrangular
Asian Test Championship in 1999.
The number of nations playing Test cricket increased gradually over the years, with the addition of
West Indies in 1928,
New Zealand in 1930,
India in 1932, and
Pakistan in 1952, but international cricket continued to be played as bilateral Test matches over three, four or five days.
In the early 1960s, English
county cricket teams began playing a shortened version of cricket which only lasted for one day. Starting in
1962 with a four-team
knockout competition known as the Midlands Knock-Out Cup,
[8] and continuing with the inaugural
Gillette Cup in
1963,
one-day cricket grew in popularity in England. A national
Sunday League was formed in
1969. The first One-Day International event was played on the fifth day of a rain-aborted Test match between England and Australia at
Melbourne in
1971, to fill the time available and as compensation for the frustrated crowd. It was a forty
over match with eight balls per over.
[9]The success and popularity of the domestic one-day competitions in England and other parts of the world, as well as the early One-Day Internationals, prompted the ICC to consider organising a Cricket World Cup.
[10]Prudential World Cups
The Prudential Cup trophy
The
inaugural Cricket World Cup was hosted in 1975 by England, the only nation able to put forward the resources to stage an event of such magnitude at that time. The 1975 tournament started on June 7.
[11] The first three events were held in England and officially known as the Prudential Cup after the sponsors
Prudential plc. The matches consisted of 60 six-ball overs per team, played during the daytime in traditional form, with the players wearing
cricket whites and using red
cricket balls.
[12]Eight teams participated in the first tournament: Australia, England, the West Indies,
New Zealand, India, and Pakistan (the six Test nations at the time), together with Sri Lanka and a composite team from
East Africa.
[13] One notable omission was
South Africa, who were banned from international cricket due to
apartheid. The tournament was won by the West Indies, who defeated Australia by 17
runs in the final at
Lord's.
[13]The
1979 World Cup saw the introduction of the
ICC Trophy competition to select non-Test playing teams for the World Cup,
[14] with Sri Lanka and
Canada qualifying.
[15] West Indies won a second consecutive World Cup tournament, defeating the hosts, England, by 92 runs in the final. At a meeting which followed the World Cup, the International Cricket Conference agreed to make the competition a quadrennial event.
[15]The
1983 event was hosted by England for a third consecutive time. By this time, Sri Lanka had become a Test-playing nation, and
Zimbabwe qualified through the ICC Trophy. A
fielding circle was introduced, 30 yards (27 m) away from the
stumps. Four
fieldsmen needed to be inside it at all times.
[16] India, an outsider quoted at 66-1 to win by bookmakers before the competition began, were crowned champions after upsetting the West Indies by 43 runs in the final.
[10][17]
