An idea nobody was sure about
The one-day international was eight years old and barely respectable when the International Cricket Conference agreed to stage a world championship for it. Test cricket was the game. Limited-overs cricket was a county gimmick that had crossed into the international calendar almost by accident. Prudential put up the money, England provided the grounds in a fortnight of freakishly good June weather, and eight teams turned up: the six Test nations plus Sri Lanka and a composite East Africa side. Sixty overs a side, red ball, white flannels, everything finished in daylight.
Nobody quite knew how to bat for sixty overs. Some worked it out immediately. Glenn Turner carried his bat for 171 against East Africa on the opening day and finished as the tournament's leading scorer with 333. Others did not. Sunil Gavaskar spent the whole of India's reply to England's 334 at Lord's making 36 not out from 174 balls, an innings so becalmed that his own countrymen struggled to explain it afterwards. Between those two extremes sat a genuine classic. Pakistan lost to the West Indies by one wicket at Edgbaston when Deryck Murray and Andy Roberts survived the last fourteen overs together.
Gilmour, and then Lloyd
Australia's route to the final ran through a green Headingley pitch and Gary Gilmour, who had not played a match in the competition until the semi-final. He took six for fourteen and left England 37 for seven. Australia then wobbled to 39 for six themselves before Gilmour, batting this time, took them home. He finished as the leading wicket-taker with eleven wickets from two games.
The final on 21 June lasted nearly ten hours and did not end until 8.43 in the evening. West Indies were 50 for three when Clive Lloyd walked out. His hundred came from 82 balls, twelve fours and two sixes, and a stand of 149 with Rohan Kanhai settled the match before Australia had faced a ball. Chasing 292, Australia were undone less by the bowling than by their own running. Five of them were run out. Viv Richards, then a young man with an uncertain place in the side, was involved in three of them from the covers. Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson added 41 for the last wicket and gave the ground a scare before Thomson became the fifth.
What it settled
The competition worked. Crowds came, the cricket was watchable, and the argument that one-day internationals could not sustain a global event collapsed inside a fortnight. Prudential signed on again for 1979. More importantly, the tournament handed the West Indies a stage on which to demonstrate what they were about to become, and the sight of Lloyd holding the trophy on the Lord's balcony became the competition's founding image.