The first World Cup saw the finale between the two strongest teams of the tournament West Indies and Australia. The final was played on 21st June, 1975. It was the longest day of the year and the match certainly went the distance.
Australian captain Ian Chappell won the toss and asked West Indies to bat first. West Indies did not have a good start as Roy Fredericks, Gordon Greenidge and Alvin Kalicharan were back to the pavilion with 50 runs on the board. However, West Indies captain Clive Lloyd played a wonderful inning and added 149 runs in the partnership with Rohan Kanhai. Lloyd’s contribution was a splendid 85-ball 102 with 12 fours and two sixes. Kanhai scored 55. In the later part of the innings, Keith Boyce and Bernard Julien contributed 34 and 26 runs respectively and the final total for West Indies to defend was 291 for the loss of eight wickets. For Australia, Gary Gilmour continued his good form from the semi-final and finished with five for 48 in his 12 overs.
It was a tricky chase for Australia. They started cautiously and reached 81 for the loss of just one wicket, but then a sequence of run outs were started by the great Viv Richards. His first two victims were Allan Turner and Greg Chappell; both were direct throw by Richards. With the score on 162/3, Ian Chappell tried to take a run of a fumble by Richards and became his third victim. From then on Australia kept losing regular wickets and when Max Walker became the fourth person to be run out they were 233/9 with another 59 required by the number ten and eleven Lillee and Thomson.
The duo batted with determination and slowly started to accumulate runs. They added 35 runs and 24 were more needed from 11 balls. This is when Thomson was caught by Fredericks and the excited West Indian fans were all over the ground. But they did not realize that the umpire Dicky Bird signaled a no ball and match had to restart after the chaos subsided. The match lasted for three more balls as Thomson became the fifth victim of run out of the innings and West Indies won the match by 17 runs to get their first World Cup trophy.
