*World Cup 1979, also called the Prudential Cup’:*Venue’: England
Teams: 8, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England, West Indies.
Format: The format saw the eight teams being divided into two groups of four each. Each group saw the teams play one leg of round-robin games after which the top two sides from each group qualified for the semi-finals. The four semi-finalists played in the semi-finals, followed by the final. In short, there were six group games in each of the groups, followed by the two semi-finals and a final.
Controversies and Innovations: The damp weather in England led to many low-scoring games in the tournament and in the end, it wasn’t a tournament that was remembered for a lot of good quality cricket as compared to the one in 1975 World Cup. It was an exact replica of the 1975 version of the World Cup and there was nothing unusual or novel about the tournament when compared with the previous one.
Upsets: India may have gone into the tournament as no-hopers, but it was expected that they would defeat Sri Lanka. As it turned out, in a first major upset, minnows and qualifiers, Sri Lanka brushed India aside to win the game. Apart from that, previous tournament’s finalists, Australia crashed out of the tournament without entering the semi-finals and Pakistan qualified at their expense.
*Most Runs’: Gordon Greenidge (253)Most Wickets: Mike Hendrick (10)Winner: West Indies*Runner-up’: England