The Finals: England Vs West Indies, Lord's, June 23

The climax was -- especially after the excitement of the semifinals -- to prove anti-climactic, as the cavaliers from the Caribbean took on the dour professionalism of England and came out ahead by the whopping margin of 93 runs.

Mike Brearley opted to bowl first on winning the toss and initially, the decision seemed justified as the Windies lost Greenidge and Kallicharan with just 36 on the board, with Haynes following soon after (55/3).

That was the cue for two sensational performances. Shrugging off the loss of his captain (Lloyd 13 off 33, West Indies 99/4), Richards played a perfectly paced, undefeated innings that saw him accumulate 138 off 157 balls (3 sixes, 11 fours) with a mixture of sound common sense and outstanding shots.

The star, though, was Collis King. Coming in at the fall of Lloyd, the all-rounder shrugged off the pressure of the situation and launched into a murderous assault that saw him smash 86 of the 139 runs added for the fifth wicket, off just 66 deliveries, with ten fours and three huge sixes. By the time King fell at 238, the West Indies had recovered.

Richards, content to play second fiddle to his flamboyant colleague, then produced a master class. At one end, Murray fell for 5, Roberts, Garner, Holding and Croft all scored zeroes. At the other end, Richards scored 40, lifting the Windies total by another 48 runs and putting the side in an impregnable position.

What was interesting about the Windies innings was the fact that in calculated fashion, they went after England's part-time bowlers who had played such a big role in the triumphs leading up to this stage. Boycott went for 38 off six, Gooch for 27 off four, and Larkins for 21 off 2 overs -- a combined total, for the ‘fifth bowler' option, of 86 off 12 overs that took the wind out of England's sails.

England's reply was a travesty. Brearley and Boycott opened as though in a Test match, with the former using up 130 deliveries for his 64 while Boycott needed 105 balls for his 57. At one point, the normally safe Lloyd floored the simplest of chances off Brearley and, when asked about it at the end of the game, was to say with a grin, that while the adage of catches winning matches was true, there was some catches it was better to drop.

The first wicket finally fell in the 39^th over. This meant that there were just 21 overs left, for the likes of Randall, Gooch, Gower and Larkins to get the 159 still needed for a win. The West Indies pace battery needed no second invitation -- Holding (2/16, Croft 3/42 and Garner 5/38) broke through to blast England out for 194 in just 51 overs (run rate 3.8, to the 4.77 of the Windies) to seal the win and retain the trophy they had won in the inaugural tournament.

The West Indies all round strength was evident in the end of series statistics -- three of the top five batsmen were members of the champion team, with Viv Richards topping the table with an average of 108.5 (217 total, in four innings), Greenidge in third place with an aggregate of 253 and an average of 84.3, and Lloyd in fifth place. Greenidge and Richards, incidentally, scored the only two centuries recorded in the competition.

Among the bowlers, Mike Hendrick was the leading wicket taker with 10 scalps -- but the bowler of the competition had to be Holding who, in 41 overs of sustained hostility, conceded just 106 runs for his eight wickets, with a best of 4/33, an average of 13.25, a strike rate of 30.75 and an incredible economy rate of 2.59 runs per over.

For Indian fans -- and it is debatable whether there were any fans, even in India, for its one day team at the time -- there was no joy. Vishwanath topped the batting table with 106 runs from three games at 35.33; his brother in law Sunny Gavaskar came second with 89 in three innings at 29.67 and barring Vishy himself, no batsman in a side that that ‘boasted' Dilip Vengsarkar, Brijesh Patel, Anshuman Gaekwad, Mohinder Amarnath and Kapil Dev among others managed a total of 100 runs in the tournament.

In terms of the bowling, it was even more dismal -- India managed to take just 6 wickets in three games. The only feature of real interest was that the part-time seam of Mohinder Amarnath was the most successful, with four wickets (average 28.5, economy rate 3.6).

Compare the above with the West Indies performance -- five of the top six batsmen all weighed in with at least one 50 apiece and aggregated over 100 each (with both Greenidge and Richards topping the 200 mark in four innings apiece), and the top four bowlers shared the wickets evenly (Holding, Croft and Garner eight apiece, Roberts 7) while Richards and King chipped in with five more.

From a financial point of view, the second World Cup was an even bigger success than the first -- sponsors Prudential weighed in with £250,000, one and a half times their contribution four years earlier, and gate receipts nearly doubled, to £359,700. The ICC made profits of £350,000.

Largely due to bad weather midway through the competition, attendance dropped from the 160,000 of 1975 to 132,000 this time.

The winning team received £10,000, the runners up took home £4,000 and the two semifinalists got £2,000 apiece. The winner of each group match got £500.

Man of the match awards amounted to £100 for each group game, £200 for the semifinals and £300 for the finals.

Significantly, it was at the end of this tournament that the ICC decided to make the World Cup a once in four years event.

Also read:

• The Initial Phases
• The Semi Finals
• Images from the tournament
• Statistics