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(Part 24.) Hoping for the best.
One of the things you can never accuse self-proclaimed “cricket people” of is humility.
In their haughty ignorance they go on endlessly about it being the gentleman’s game—blissfully unaware, or pretending to be unaware, that the Victorian phrase has nothing to do with conduct but everything to do with privilege and social status.
“Cricket the gentleman’s game” was a term coined in Victorian England, as the game then was played and governed almost exclusively by the upper class of British society.
This rose-tinted perspective exalts the pastime to the level of a noble endeavour, far above the low-class shenanigans associated with other sports, especially football.
So, with 27 days to go to the 50th anniversary of the West Indies’ victory over Australia in the 1975 Cricket World Cup final, let’s remind ourselves how the jiggery-pokery then is connected to the jiggery-pokery now in relation to the 50 overs-per-side international competition.
Using Martin Williamson’s The Birth of the World Cup on 31 January 2015 on ESPNCricinfo as the primary source, it becomes clear that the organisation and structure of the original tournament involved a lot of indecision, considerable negotiation and a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, even from some of the teams participating in the event.
It was on 25 July 1973, three days before the final match of the inaugural Women’s World Cup in England, that the International Cricket Conference (it was changed to ‘Council’ in 1987) approved the concept of an international limited-over tournament.
By the time it came around though, only 18 One-Day Internationals had been played in the nearly four-and-a-half years since the first accidental fixture between Australia and England in Melbourne, which was only subsequently classified as an ODI.
While limited-over cricket was flourishing in England and had taken off in Australia, the other four Test-playing nations (full members of the ICC) had either limited exposure to the format or, as became evident in India’s attitude to their three group matches, none at all to the point of being comically clueless.
Both teams opted to use the free day to play a game of limited overs cricket instead.
Copyright: Lords.
Javed Miandad, who would become one of Pakistan’s all-time batting greats over the next two decades, was quoted on ESPNCricinfo in 2014 as saying that his international debut for his country during the 1975 World Cup generated no great attention at home.
“We didn’t know what the World Cup itself was,” he said, in reflecting on his own feelings at being selected as a 17-year-old. “Actually, I think none of the teams knew what to make of it.”
This might have been an exaggeration on Miandad’s part but certainly the response of the English media suggested that they hadn’t caught on to the World Cup concept either.
There was very little hype in newspapers, radio and television before the first ball was bowled on 7 June—and even on that opening day, the Cricket World Cup came in a distant second to a pre-Wimbledon tennis tournament.
As for the actual competition structure, the draw wasn’t a draw in the real sense as it was pre-determined that Ashes rivals England and Australia would be kept apart while uncomfortable neighbours India and Pakistan would also be in separate preliminary groups.
Compare that to the present fix where it is mandatory for those teams to be in the same group to maximise television revenue at the group stages of any ICC event.
Photo: ICC/ Getty.
Why 1975 though?
Well, that’s when there was a gap in the calendar in England because South Africa, banned after 1970 due their racist policy of apartheid, were due to tour that year.
So, in came the World Cup. And, in the event that the new tournament was a financial flop, a four-Test Ashes series was arranged to follow the two-week event.
Unlike now where the ICC controls everything to the point of taking over the venues and getting tax concessions from hosting governments—then it was left to the home administration, known at the time as the Test and County Cricket Board, to basically run the thing as they saw fit.
The comparable price now, allowing for inflation, would be around £25 (TT$230).
The cheapest public ticket for Lord’s at the 2019 final was £95 (TT$874), the most expensive £395 (TT$3,633).
So they went with the format of the longest of their three domestic limited-over competitions, the Gillette Cup.
Matches were therefore 60 overs-per-side with bowlers limited to 12 overs maximum. That apart, it was very much like the traditional first-class game with lunch and tea intervals, white clothing, red balls, no fielding restrictions and nothing like what we have now with automatic leg-side wides and free hits after no-balls.
To have an event touted as a World Cup with only six competing teams was too farcical to contemplate so Sri Lanka (who didn’t have Test status yet) were added to the preliminary group with the West Indies, Australia and Pakistan while a team knows as East Africa, drawing on players from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, joined England, New Zealand and India in the other group.
(via CWI Media.)
All teams arrived two weeks in advance to acclimatise but the weather was so poor in the lead in to the opening day—a county match was actually snowed off during that time—as to have organisers fearing the worst.
Given the decidedly lukewarm reaction by all concerned to that point, their anxiety was understandable.
Next: Caribbean voices call the action.
(Part 23.) All-round excellence. This series started with a clear plan of articles counting down to the 50th anniversary of Read more
(Part 22.) Home away from home. When it came to familiarity with British conditions, England weren’t the only team at Read more
(Part 21.) An impatient King. Without resorting to your trusty search engine or any personal archives, can you name the Read more
(Part 20.) Waiting in the wings. But for a falling out with the manager of the Jamaican national table tennis Read more
(Part 19.) Off-spinning stylist. In the year of the World Cup, Lance Gibbs stood on the verge of history. Although Read more
(Part 18.) Silent assassin. Andy Roberts was a ground-breaker—the first from Antigua and Barbuda to play senior international cricket for Read more
Fazeer Mohammed is a journalist/broadcaster with almost 40 years’ experience across a range of media.
His interest in cricket, and particularly its history, started at home via his father’s small collection of autobiographies and magazines, offering perspectives and context which have informed his commentary and analysis on contemporary issues in the game.
