The First Cricket World Cup — Lord's, 1975 Final, West Indies vs Australia

The case for a global one-day tournament had been argued since the late 1960s. The Sunday League's success in England, the limited-overs Gillette Cup, and the ad hoc 1971 Melbourne fixture had all demonstrated the format's commercial appeal. The ICC formally approved the tournament in July 1973 and contracted Prudential Insurance as title sponsor. England were chosen as host because they were the only Test nation with established limited-overs facilities and crowd familiarity with the format.

The eight-team field was assembled by adding the two leading associate nations of the time — Sri Lanka (still associate, not yet Test) and East Africa (a composite of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia). Group draws were political: West Indies and Pakistan together; Australia, England, New Zealand and India together. The format favoured the Test nations but provided the associates with their first international platform.

The group stage produced the tournament's first defining match: the West Indies-Pakistan group fixture at Edgbaston on 11 June, in which Pakistan made 266/7 and reduced West Indies to 203/9 chasing. Deryck Murray, batting at nine, and Andy Roberts, batting at eleven, then put on an unbeaten 64 to win the match by one wicket — a result that effectively eliminated Pakistan from the tournament and confirmed West Indies as group winners.

The other notorious group result was Sunil Gavaskar's 36 not out off 174 balls in India's chase of England's 334 at Lord's on the opening day. India lost by 202 runs; Gavaskar later attributed the innings to a personal misjudgement of the format he was new to. India did not advance.

By the final day at Lord's the tournament had already been declared a success in the British press. The match itself was the showpiece.

Eight teams contested the 1975 tournament — the six Test-playing nations plus East Africa and Sri Lanka. The format was a single round-robin in two groups followed by knockout. West Indies, captained by Clive Lloyd, won their group ahead of Pakistan after the famous Murray-Roberts last-wicket stand at Edgbaston; Australia under Ian Chappell topped the other group. The semi-finals on 18 June produced wins for West Indies (over New Zealand at the Oval) and Australia (over England at Headingley).

The final at Lord's was played on the longest day of the year, with 60 eight-ball overs originally scheduled but reduced to 60 six-ball overs in the British convention. West Indies were 50/3 when Lloyd entered; he made 102 from 85 balls with 12 fours and two sixes. Rohan Kanhai's 55 was the quiet anchor at the other end. The total of 291/8 was, at the time, the largest in a one-day international.

Australia's reply was systematically derailed by Vivian Richards' fielding. Richards, then 23 and not yet the dominant batter he would become, ran out Alan Turner, Greg Chappell and Ian Chappell — three direct hits from cover and midwicket. Australia were 233/9 when Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson combined for a defiant 41-run last-wicket stand; Thomson was finally run out attempting a fourth run that the umpires (after a ball had been called dead in confusion at the boundary) awarded as the dismissing run.

“We were not just playing a match; we were playing for everything we represented. To win it at Lord's, in front of that crowd, made it ours.”

“Vivian Richards in the field that day cost us the World Cup. The runouts were not luck. He was hitting the stumps from anywhere.”

The tournament's commercial success exceeded the ICC's expectations. Total attendance across the 15 matches was over 158,000; final-day attendance at Lord's was 26,000 with a global television audience estimated at over 200 million. Prudential renewed for the 1979 tournament. The decision was taken almost immediately to make the World Cup quadrennial.

For West Indies, the title was the first global trophy of an emerging dynasty. Lloyd's captaincy and the emergence of Roberts, Holding, Garner and (within a year) Marshall would extend the side's dominance in both formats for the next decade and a half. Lloyd himself would lift the trophy again in 1979 as captain and would lose only the 1983 final.

For Australia, the loss was a footnote to the broader 1975 in which they had retained the Ashes and remained the dominant Test side. But the World Cup defeat was a marker that one-day cricket required different skills — particularly in fielding — that the side had not yet fully integrated.