After th??e 1979 World Cup the teams were rated as ??shown below:-

RATE TEAM
142 West Indies
108 England
108 Australia
80 Pakistan
72 New Zealand
29 India

The next major ODI tournament was the World Series Cup beginning in November 1979 and which featured Australia, England and West Indies, which naturally was won by West Indies though not before overcoming difficulties facing the home side who, according to Wisden, ‘bowled for wickets instead of adopting the run-saving line and length approach of England’. England did make its mark on the tournament, however, first when Geoff Boycott turned his reputation for slow play on its head with some sparkling performances, including a magnificent 105 at Sydney. The second noteworthy event involving England was during a match against West Indies when, with West Indies requiring three to win off the last ball, Mike Brearley stationed all of his fielders, including wicket-keeper David Bairstow, around the boundary. This action would lead to subsequent fielding restrictions – and where would we be without baseball-inspired phrases like “power play”?

The Australians visited England in the summer of 1980 to compete in the second Centenary Test, while tagging on a couple of ODIs, in both of which the hosts were victorious. As Wisden noted, ‘limited-overs cricket is something at which the Australians have yet to excel.’ And when the Indians toured the Antipodes, the Almanack noted ‘There were clear signs that the excess of one-day cricket at international level, which limits the appearances of Test players in Sheffield Shield matches, would, if continued, be to the detriment of the rising generation.’

But it was the ODI series involving Australia and New Zealand that winter which would really bring ODI cricket to the public forum with a bang. Australia captain Greg Chappell had made no bones about his dislike for the short format, claiming to dislike the defensive nature of it and the need for negative bowling. Yet with New Zealand requiring a six off the last ball to force a tie in a best of five Benson and Hedges Cup match, the skipper instructed brother Trevor to bowl a sneak. As Wisden opined in a piece entitled Sharp practice in Melbourne, ‘For too long the Australian Cricket Board have been over-tolerant of indiscipline and actions of dubious intent.’

England’s tour of India in the winter of 1981/82 saw England lose the ODI series 2-1, where the attendances in India indicated the growing popularity of the one-day game as compared to Test cricket. The ODI team ratings following that series looked like this:-

RATE TEAM
146 West Indies
123 Australia
103 England
95 New Zealand
77 Pakistan
62 India

T??hough still ranked bottom of the pile, India were clearly starting to get the hang of this one-day thing.

For the 1982/83 World Series Cup, coloured clothing and the white ball were introduced for the first time outside of Packer World Series Cricket – horror of horrors. As Wisden huffed, ‘There were times during the World Series Cup when the game that was being played bore little resemblance to the more sophisticated and skillful form of cricket which had preceded it in the Ashes series…the atmosphere seemed at times more like that of the Colosseum than a cricket ground.’

The 1983 Prudential World Cup

A perfect time then for the next instalment of the Prudential World Cup during the summer of 1983. The tournament underwent its first expansion, as the number of games increased from 15 to 25, though these were played in more or less the same timeframe as previous contests. The tournament began in grand fashion as first little Zimbabwe humbled the mighty Australians with one Duncan Fletcher being named Man of the Match, before the previously invincible West Indians were knocked off by the lowly ranked Indians. Pakistan was without Imran Khan and Australia seemed to be unable ?to shake off the shock of that first defeat, and the semi-finals featured England, India, West Indies and Pakistan. India saw off hosts England in the first semi-final while Pakistan, missing Javed Miandad with flu, were beaten by West Indies to set up a rematch of the early shock. In perhaps an even bigger shock, the Kapil Dev-led Indian team beat the only team to have won the World Cup since its inception eight years before.

The ratings t??able following the tournamen??t looked like this:-

RATE TEAM
133 West Indies
106 New Zealand
104 India
103 Pakistan
101 Australia
98 England
31 Sri Lanka

India rocketing up the table then, as a result of that momentous World Cup win, with West Indies slipping in ratings points but still well ahead in ?the rankings. New Zealand had defeated both England and Australia to climb up to second.

The resurgent Indians beat the Pakistani tourists 2-0 the following winter, but it was another limited overs match which caught the imagination of the public, when a match played for the Prime Minister’s Fund was attended by over 100,000 fans. India was now up to second in the rankings and clearly becoming a force in one-day cricket:-

RATE TEAM
133 West Indies
110 India
106 New Zealand
101 Australia
98 England
96 Pakistan
31 Sri Lanka

This didn’t last long though, as the very next campaign saw India given a 5-0 trouncing at the hands of the West Indians, who also handily beat the Australians in April of 1984. Traveling onto England the home crowds were treated to some of the most magnificent batting ever from Viv Richards, in particular his ODI century at Old Trafford, with 21 boundaries and five sixes including one hit right out of the ground. West Indies were by now a fully formed unit with no flaws, as apart from their batting and bowling heroics their fielding was at a level seldom seen before – witness the run out by Eldine Baptiste of Geoff Miller at Lord’s, when an 80-yard throw took out the middle stump as Miller, considering himself safe, sauntered into the crease.*

India would suffer another whitewash at the hands of Australia in the winter of 1984/85, 3-0 with two matches ra??ined off, but the tour would not be a happy one as Kim Hughes subsequently resigned in remarkable fashion, while the cland??????????????????????????estine talks began which would ultimately result in rebel tours to South Africa. India also lost heavily to England as the heady days of the World Cup triumph receded into the distance.

At the end of 1984?? the ratings table looked like this:-

RATE TEAM
136 West Indies
122 England
111 Australia
105 Pakistan
96 New Zealand
89 India
58 Sri Lanka

Tests vs ODIs

As the 1980s began, it can be seen that there was a vast difference in quality between the Test-playing nations as regards ODI capability. However, by the end of 1984 they had mat?ured somewhat and it can be seen that the end-1984 ODI ratings are comparable to the end-1984 Test ratings. Of c??ourse, West Indies were miles ahead in both formats.

Next time we’ll look at the second half of the decade..

* The Baptiste run-out can be seen at around 3:30 of the YouTube clip below:-

Attention switched across the Tasman Sea as the co-hosts got their proceedings underway against their old enemy/whipping boy, England, and to the surprise of precisely nobody, the hosts prevailed without needing to pick out anything beyond second gear. David Warner bludgeoned a traditionally tone-setting century before Stuart Broad’s final two overs cost 47 as the hosts posted 383. England were ahead of the run-rate, an imposing 7.7 per over, until the fifth over, when Moeen Ali sliced the ball to third man and Ian Bell picked out cover in consecutive deliveries. Ravi Bopara made an 89-ball 38 to prolong the inevitable defeat, an innings described as “resolute” by the media and “painful” by the six England fans who stayed until his final miscue gave Steve Smith a catch so straightforward he opted to take the ball in one hand with his eyes closed. Kevin Pietersen then tweeted that Kevin Pietersen thought Kevin Pietersen should be in the England side, but Piers Morgan was the only person to retweet it.

The first major talking point of the World Cup came as Ireland took on the West Indies, the kind of fixture that anyone who truly understands the purpose of the world game knew would be nothing more than an irrelevant time-filler, giving air to an Associate member much better off asphyxiated, and would never be a contest. There was only ever one side in it. The West Indies were bowled out for 88 in 9.2 overs, a display later defended by Jason Holder as being one where the side did their utmost to take the initiative of the game and hit the Irish bowlers off their lengths, as the Netherlands did so effectively the last time anyone in Ireland played any cricket. William Porterfield gave an eloquent defence of Associate cricket in his own press conference, only for the ICC’s official broadcast to transmit that episode of South Park with the leprechaun in it instead. Meanwhile, the WICB concluded that the defeat meant that their squad was too old, that it was time to call up younger replacements and build for the future, and promptly got in touch with the principals of Kingston College and Bridgetown High School.

The tournament progressed into Week 2/3/4/5, and the main attraction became the task of working out which teams were playing, where they were playing, whether the fixture actually mattered in the slightest in the grand scheme of things, and if anybody outside the players’ immediate families would turn up. Scotland may or may not have won their first fixture at a global tournament, and Paul Collingwood may have painted himself from head to toe in the cross of St Andrew, but (mercifully) there is no photographic evidence of either. India posted 576/5 against a hapless gaggle of West Indian schoolboys (who were then promptly given a week’s detention,sent home by the WICB and replaced by their younger brothers).

The Bajan U11s still proved competent enough to dispose of a UAE side reeling from a mid-tournament rule change that demanded countries fielded at least nine native-born players. When asked for any legal basis or justification behind this ruling, the ICC denied any suggestion that it had anything to do with England calling up Ben Stokes to replace Ravi Bopara, who had been found cowering in the toilet blocks at the SCG having been bounced out by Dawlat Zadran, and simply declared that it was their ball and their stumps and if anyone else didn’t like it then they could go home. Interestingly, MS Dhoni gave an identical response when Zimbabwe attempted to refer a caught-behind decision in their final group fixture, adding that India had paid for the DRS system, and Zimbabwe hadn’t, so they could decide when they got to use it.

After the fun of the group stages, the semi-final lineup pitched South Africa against Sri Lanka, India against top seeds England (sadly this particular adjective is one of the few factually accurate things in this preview), and co-hosts Australia and New Zealand against Pakistan and underdogs Ireland respectively. The first knockout game saw Lasith Malinga take the field at long last, and as the South African run chase approached the final over, five runs were required with five wickets in hand. The stage was set for a reprise of the 2011 heroics as the “slinger” took the ball and marked out his run, before spearing an inswinger down to the fine leg boundary and sending the South Africans through before they even had time to consider the contents of their supper, never mind choking on it.

The form book made a reappearance at this stage, with England’s unbeaten record against India in Australia under Eoin Morgan (also true) proving an excellent predictor for things to come, the England attack bringing back nightmarish memories of the English summer just past as James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes reduced India to 53 for 6. New Zealand proved far too strong for Ireland, demonstrating beyond any reasonable doubt that future World Cups should only be contested between full member nations, regardless of any beatings suffered by Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and the West Indies. The fourth quarter-final proved memorable mostly for the fact that Shahid Afridi retired from international cricket at the exact moment when a particularly badly top-edged slog reached the apex of the parabola between his own miscue and James Faulkner’s hands, and insisting that the scorebook be altered on the grounds that there was no way he was getting out to Xavier Doherty.

This left the Kiwis to take on the Proteas in the first semi-final before an Ashes rematch in the second game, but unfortunately for the global audience, none of the final knockouts would be broadcast following a careless question in a press conference following India’s elimination, when it was pointed out that the billion-dollar powerhouse had only achieved as much as lowly Ireland. Enraged, the BCCI official insisted that this “ludicrous eventuality” was an indication of how important it was for the tournament to be reduced. When challenged to justify at which point this reduction would stop, and whether the World Cup would ultimately head the way of the MLB World Series, the bureaucrat blinked twice, professed his eternal love and gratitude for the journalist, and waltzed out of the room, setting the wheels in motion for the World Challenge finals. Remarkably, the series between India Invincibles and India Incredibles could only be scheduled at exactly the same dates and times as the World Cup fixtures, and as the World Challenge would enjoy far higher viewing figures it was deemed to take priority.

Back in the Antipodes, the absence of TV coverage meant the death knell for DRS, and unfortunately for Australia, the sudden rush of power and responsibility went straight to Billy Bowden’s head, and the green and gold were 33 for 9 at the end of the first over. Bowden was wheeled straight to the nearest asylum, despite his protests that he now couldn’t be referred anywhere, as a bemused Chris Woakes wondered how he had managed to break the records for best bowling figures and most expensive over in the space of 15 minutes. On the back of New Zealand’s elimination two days earlier – despite a delay in proceedings when several expert lawyers were required to explain to Kane Williamson what “out” was, having edged behind for 9 to finish the competition with an average of 1089 – both hosts had been eliminated.

This meant a showdown at the MCG between England and South Africa, and a slew of articles reminiscing about the 1992 World Cup and makin?g ill-judged remarks about the Duckworth/Lewis system despite the fact that D/L was not used in ODI cricket until 1997. An outstanding all-round display put England in a commanding position until a rain delay interrupted proceedings, and in??credibly when play resumed, South Africa required 22 runs from one Stuart Broad delivery.

Th??ree no-ball maximums later, AB de Villiers had his hands on the trophy.