History of The Cricket World Cup

History Of The Cricket World Cup

The first cricket Test match was played in 1877 between Australia and England. Cricket was contested at the 1900 Summer Olympics where Great Britain defeated France by 158 runs. However, the International Olympic Committee cancelled cricket as an Olympic sport afterwards.

The first attempt at arranging an international cricket competition was the 1912 Triangular Tournament. It was a Test cricket tournament played in England between all three Test playing nations at the time; England, Australia and South Africa. Due to poor weather and a lack of public interest, the experiment was not repeated. From then on, international Test cricket teams only generally engaged in bilateral series as opposed to tournaments or leagues involving more than two nations.

In the early 1960s, English county cricket teams began playing a shortened version of cricket, which only lasted for one day. Starting in 1962 as a 4-team knockout competition known as the Midlands Knock-Out Cup, and the Gillette Cup in 1963, one-day cricket grew in popularity and in 1969 a national league called the Sunday League was created. The first One Day International came about from a rain-aborted Test match at Melbourne between England and Australia in 1971 and was played on the final scheduled day. The forty over match (eight balls per over) was used to fill the time as compensation for the frustrated crowd.

The success and popularity of the domestic one-day competitions in England and other parts of the world as well as the early One-day Internationals prompted the International Cricket Council to consider organising a Cricket World Cup.