Team performances in World Cups in England

Mohandas Menon

Although six editions of the World Cups have been played so far - three in England, two in the Indian sub-continent and one in Australasia, playing in English conditions where the ball dominates the bat calls for special skills.

Tall scores will not be the order the day. So let's review the team performances of the first three World Cup matches.

A total of 56 matches have been played in the first three World Cups in England. All matches then played were of 60-overs-a-side. A glance at Table A (below) indicates that the West Indies, with most of its players playing in English counties in the seventies and eighties, have the best record - they also won two world titles and narrowly missed the third!

Host England, with home conditions favouring them, has the second best record. India, on the basis of its 1983 performance, occupies the number three position jointly with New Zealand. Interestingly, Australia and Pakistan, who are considered among the better teams, are in the fifth spot in terms of success percentage.

The table below also provides the total runs scored and wickets lost by the ten teams in England.

Table A: SUMMARY OF MATCHES WITH RESULTS

No	Country	Played	Won	Lost	Success %	Runs scored	wickets	Runs/Wkts	Runs/100 balls
1.	West Indies	17	15	2	88.23	3772	94	40.13	65.12
2.	England	16	12	4	75.00	3440	99	34.75	70.28
3.	India	14	7	7	50.00	2754	107	25.74	63.17
4.	New Zealand	14	7	7	50.00	3015	104	28.99	63.49
5.	Australia	14	6	8	42.86	2999	108	27.77	70.10
6.	Pakistan	14	6	8	42.86	3257	101	32.25	67.78
7.	Sri Lanka	11	2	9	18.18	2251	95	23.69	62.48
8.	Zimbabwe	6	1	5	16.66	1257	53	23.72	60.11
9.	East Africa	3	-	3	00.00	342	28	12.21	33.93
10.	Canada	3	-	3	00.00	289	29	9.97	35.99
		56				23376	818	28.58	65.12

Although the World Cup matches in Englad were of 60-overs-a-side, only on eight occasions have teams crossed the 300-run mark. In one of the opening matches of the 1975 edition, England blasted the Indians to score 334-4 in its allotted 60 overs at Lord's.

This remained a record until Pakistan reached 338-5 against Sri Lanka at Swansea in 1983. This score in a 50-over match would have meant a total of just 282 runs.

Just for the record, the most runs scored by any team in a one-day international had come in a World Cup match, when Sri Lanka scored 398-5 in 50 overs against Kenya at Kandy in 1996. Interestingly, had Sri Lanka maintained a similar run rate over a 60 over game, it could have reached a total of 478 runs. Table B lists the highest team scores in England.

Table B: HIGHEST TEAM TOTALS

SCORE	MATCH	VENUE	YEAR
338-5 (60 overs)	Pakistan v Sri Lanka	Swansea	1983	(282)
334-4 (60 overs)	England v India	Lord's	1975	(278)
333-9 (60 overs)	England v Sri Lanka	Taunton	1983	(277)
330-6 (60 overs)	Pakistan v Sri Lanka	Nottingham	1975	(275)
328-5 (60 overs)	Australia v Sri Lanka	The Oval	1975	(273)
322-6 (60 overs)	England v New Zealand	The Oval	1983	(268)
320-9 (60 overs)	Australia v India	Nottingham	1983	(266)
309-5 (60 overs)	New Zealand v East Africa	Birmingham	1975	(258)
Best for India :
266-8 (60 overs)	India v Zimbabwe	Tunbridge Wells	1983	(222)

Note: Figures in the last column indicates the adjusted totals in a 50-over match.

Sri Lanka, despite its poor record in England, has twice managed huge second innings totals without winning. The West Indies remains the only team in World Cup competition on English soil to surpass huge totals batting second. Table C has the details.

SCORE	MATCH	VENUE	YEAR
288-9 (60 overs)	Sri Lanka v Pakistan (338-5)	Swansea	1983
286 (58 overs)	Sri Lanka v England (333-9)	Taunton	1983
276-3+ (57.5 overs)	West Indies v Australia (273-6)	Lord's	1983
276-4 (60 overs)	Sri Lanka v Australia (328-5)	Lord's	1975
274 (58.4 overs)	Australia v West Indies (291-8)	Lord's	1975
267-9+ (59.4 overs)	West Indies v Pakistan (266-7)	Birmingham	1975

Note:+ indicates winning totals

Mohandas Menon concludes his look at batting performances in England