India at The Cricket World Cup - India at The 1975 World Cup

India At The 1975 World Cup

The 1975 Cricket World Cup was the first World Cup and comprised a number of 60-over matches. India were grouped with England, East Africa and New Zealand and played each of these teams once. In order to advance to the semi-finals they needed to place within the top 2 positions of their pool. However, the running was tough and India did not succeed, following a particularly infamous loss in their opening game.

India lost their first match to hosts England by 202 runs after England scored 334 (4 wickets, 60 overs) in their allotted overs, with help from DL Amiss (137 from 147 balls), and KWR Fletcher (68 from 107 balls), who shared a second-wicket partnership of 176 runs. Any hopes of an Indian win were lost after some extremely controversial batting by Sunil Gavaskar (36 from 174 balls, 1 four), who batted through the 60 overs for 36 not out as India scored 132 (3 wickets, 60 overs). This match was treated as a disgrace in India and the players were faced with much criticism. The rest of India's World Cup Campaign was less controversial; they picked up an easy 10 wicket win against minnows East Africa (through some more intelligent batting by Sunil Gavaskar (65 from 86 balls, 9 fours) and Farokh Engineer (54 from 93 balls, 7 fours)before bowing out of the tournament in a must-win match against New Zealand. After scoring 230 all out in 60 overs, led by a half-century from Abid Ali (70 from 98 balls, 5 fours, 1 six), Glenn Turner (114 from 177 balls, 13 fours) brought New Zealand home with 4 wickets and 1.1 overs remaining. .

The Indian Squad of the 1975 World Cup comprised:

• Abid Ali
• Mohinder Amarnath
• Bishan Singh Bedi
• Farokh Engineer (wicket keeper)
• Anshuman Gaekwad
• Sunil Gavaskar
• Karsan Ghavri
• Madan Lal
• Brijesh Patel
• Eknath Solkar
• Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan (captain)
• Gundappa Viswanath (reserve wicket keeper)

• India's record: 1−2
• West Indies's record: 5−0 (champions)