Off the island
Three tournaments, three English summers, three finals at Lord's. The 1987 competition broke all of it. India and Pakistan bid jointly and won the hosting rights, backed by Reliance money, and the World Cup left England for the first time. The subcontinent's shorter daylight hours forced a change that turned out to be permanent: matches were cut from sixty overs to fifty, and the one-day game has stayed there ever since. Teams still wore white and used a red ball, for the last time in the tournament's history.
Everyone assumed the hosts would meet in the final. It was a reasonable assumption. Both topped their groups, both had crowds worth twenty runs an innings, and the West Indies, who might have stopped either, went out at the group stage after losing twice to England. Viv Richards made 181 from 125 balls against Sri Lanka at Karachi and it counted for nothing at all. Chetan Sharma bowled Rutherford, Smith and Chatfield with consecutive deliveries at Nagpur for the first hat-trick in World Cup history.
The tightest match of the group stage came on the opening weekend at Madras, where Australia beat India by a single run after a boundary was signalled four when it should have been six. Australia had arrived having won two of their previous fifteen one-day internationals. By the end of the group stage they had beaten India once and lost narrowly to them once, and nobody was quite sure what to make of them.
Two semi-finals, two capitulations
At Lahore on 4 November, Australia made 267 for 8 and Pakistan lost their last six wickets for 99 in reply, going down by 18. Steve Waugh had taken 18 from the fiftieth over of the Australian innings, which is precisely the margin. The next day at Bombay, Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting swept India's spinners for a partnership of 117; Gooch made 115 and England reached 254. India were 204 for 5 with fifty needed from ten overs, then lost five wickets for 15.
Eden Gardens
The final drew a crowd estimated at anywhere upward of 70,000. Australia batted first, David Boon making 75 and Mike Veletta 45 from 31 balls to bring 65 runs from the last six overs, closing at 253 for 5. England were level with the rate and Gatting was set on 41 when he attempted a reverse sweep against Allan Border's first delivery and gloved it to the wicketkeeper. Allan Lamb made 45, the required rate climbed, and England finished seven short.
What it changed
Australia had never won a World Cup. Border's side went from the weakest they had fielded in decades to the foundation of the most successful era in their history. Fifty overs became the standard length of an international one-day match. And the tournament proved the competition did not need English grounds, a lesson the ICC applied immediately.