Venue: Australia and New Zealand
Teams: 9, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, England, West Indies.
Format: This was the first and the only tournament till date which saw each team play against each other in a round-robin league. The nine teams were involved in 36 such league matches before the top four were to meet in the semi-finals followed by the final.
Controversies and Innovations: It was a relatively controversy-free tournament but the biggest one was clearly the rain-rule. This tournament used a rain-rule made by a committee headed by Richie Benaud and it was clearly the most atrocious of all had so far. Without getting into the nitty-grities of the rule, it would suffice to say that the team batting second was pushed back by long distance in case of rains and the biggest result was the semi-final game between South Africa and England. Needing 22 to win off 13 balls, eight minutes of rain pushed the target down to 21 off one ball for South Africa!
Upsets: New Zealand were clearly the team of the tournament. They won the first seven matches of the tournament to make it through to the semi-finals including an upset win over Australia in the first game of the World Cup. There was another potential upset when Zimbabwe scored more than 300 against Sri Lanka thanks to Andy Flower’s century but Arjuna Ranatunga helped the side chase the target down. This was followed by Zimbabwe’s stunning win over England despite scoring only 130 odd thanks to an Eddo Brandes’ hat-trick.
*Most Runs’: Martin Crowe (456)Most Wickets: Wasim Akram (18)Player of the series: Martin CroweWinner: Pakistan*Runner-up’: England