Today’s day is indeed special for all cricketing fans as this was the day when the mighty West Indies won the inaugural World Cup. The Clive Lloyd-led side became the first team to win the World Cup. The 1975 World Cup served as the birthplace of modern One Day International (ODI) cricket as tens of thousands of fervent spectators flocked to see the gentleman’s game in its brand-new guise.
Due to the novelty of the first-ever shorter form of the game, which took place in England, wasit was met with a great deal of excitement. There were majorly Eight teams who were taking part in the competition, including teams like Australia, England, the West Indies, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, and an East African composite all these eight teams were further divided into two groups of four teams each.
The Clive Lloyd-led side were certainly a team to watch out for from the beginning of the tournament and that is what happened as the West Indies remained unbeaten throughout the competition, winning all five matches that they played including the finals. The West Indies played New Zealand in the Semi-Final and then went on to play the finals against the Australian side.
With their brand of cricket, they enlivened stadiums all throughout England, and their victories over Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Australia helped them win Group B. Prior to the historic final at Lord’s where they defeated Australia once more to win the title of world champions, they defeated New Zealand in the semifinal at The Oval.
They had many top players on their team, including Gordon Greenidge, Lance Gibbs, and Sir Vivian Richards, in addition to skipper Lloyd. In the Semi Final match against New Zealand, Lloyd won the toss and choose to field. After an outstanding bowling effort which resulted in restricting the Black Caps to a mere total of 158 and then chased down the total in just 40.1 overs courtesy of some terrific batting partnership between Alvin Kallicharan (72) and Gordon Greenidge (55), who put together a match-winning 125 runs stand for the second wicket.
The West Indies were certainly on a high being unbeatable in the tournament. They replicated the same form in the Finals as well as against the Australian team, who won the toss and asked the West Indies to bat. The Clive Lloyd-led side posted a mammoth target of 292 on the back of the terrific batting effort from the skipper himself, who scored a memorable 102. Following their brilliant batting effort, the Windies went on to restrict the Australian side to a total of 274 resulting them in winning the all-important Final by 17 runs.