The First Men’s Cricket World Cup
International cricket’s big day became its payday on 21 June 1975 when Australia faced the West Indies in the final of the first Cricket World Cup.
It was a different time. Cricket had yet to discover money. The first men’s World Cup in 1975, a 60-over competition, changed that. ‘World Cup nets cricket a £200,000 bonanza’, the Daily Mail reported with awe.
The cricket was different. South Africa was banned because of apartheid. A team from East Africa competed, comprising players from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia. Attitudes were different too. ‘India’, wrote commentator John Arlott, ‘showed an inhibiting, if not incomprehensible, aversion to the limited over format.’
This was before batsmen wore helmets. Sri Lankan batsman Duleep Mendis was hit on the forehead by a ball from Australian fast bowler Jeff Thomson and stretchered off. A helmet wouldn’t have helped his colleague Sunil Wettimuny: Thomson fractured one of his ribs and broke his right foot.
When the West Indies beat Australia at the Oval in the group stage, 1,000 people got in illegally: fans inside the ground threw their tickets over the wall to those outside.
On 21 June 1975 the West Indies beat Australia again in the final. The competition was ‘snake oil’, Michael Parkinson said. But The Times thought it ‘the best innovation in the history of cricket since … the Ashes’. Future competitions might see teams from Fiji or Hong Kong, Arlott speculated.