Rediff Homepages

		History of the holy sport.
	HOW IT ALL STARTED The idea for a cricket World Cup stemmed from the growing popularity of one-day cricket in England, which was introduced in 1963 to boost gate attendance and receipts and attract new commercial money into a cash starved game. One-day cricket was gaining ground but the first international happened by default in Melbourne in 1971 when the third Test match between England and Australia was washed out and a 40-over a side match was quickly arranged to replace it. More than 46,000 people turned up to watch what was regarded as a frivolous exhibition match between an England side led by Ray Illingworth and Bill Lawrie’s Australians, who had yet to bowl a ball of limited over cricket. Despite their inexperience and to some enthusiastic whooping from the 46,000 MCG crowd, the home side won. No one thought anything of it and so lightweight was the notion of a one-day international, that it took the Australian authorities another four years to get round to staging a second match. On the other side of the world, however, the concept was finding more support and in 1972 the inaugural Prudential Trophy was staged in England featuring three 55-over games between England and the touring Australians, with £5,000 up for grabs to the winner. It proved a huge success and was repeated against New Zealand and West Indies in the following two summers. On the back of that, the Test and County Cricket Board, as it was then, proposed a two-week tournament of 60-over matches in England in 1975 between the six Test playing nations and two associate member countries. Thus was born the World Cup and with each staging since 1975, the competition, which has never been won by the country hosting it, has grown in momentum, dynamism and prestige making it the most coveted title in the cricketing world. What will happen this time? Will history be created?

	TOTAL SPORTS AND FITNESS WORLD CUP CRICKET CRAZY		M Jagadish mjagadish@hotmail.com