India At The 1979 World Cup
In the 1979 Cricket World Cup, India was grouped up with reigning champions the West Indies as well as New Zealand, and minnows Sri Lanka. Once again, the matches were played in 60-over ODI. India got off to a bad start after their top order capitulated to a strong West Indies, with only Gundappa Viswanath (75 from 134 balls, 7 fours) putting up any resistance. They eventually lost by 9 wickets, the only wicket being that of Desmond Haynes, nabbed LBW by Kapil Dev, as Gordon Greenidge (106 from 173 balls) put up an unbeaten West Indian century.
The next match practically ended their World Cup Campaign, with a 8-wicket loss at the hands of New Zealand. The match was reasonably close as India were all out for 182 with 5 overs to spare, with only Sunil Gavaskar (55 from 144 balls, 5 fours) putting up any resistance, and New Zealand had only 3 overs remaining to achieve their target. All bowlers gave little over 3 runs an over, but BA Edgar (84 from 167 balls) eventually brought New Zealand home, in a 100-run opening partnership with JG Wright. A demoralized India went into the last match against Sri Lanka as favourites, but they failed to chase down Sri Lanka's 238, losing by 47 runs. India ended their World Cup without managing to score above 200, a performance that generated renewed uproar in India.
The Indian Squad of the 1979 World Cup composed of:
- Mohinder Amarnath
- Bishan Bedi
- Kapil Dev
- Anshuman Gaekwad
- Sunil Gavaskar
- Karsan Ghavri
- Surinder Khanna (wicketkeeper)
- Brijesh Patel
- Bharath Reddy
- Yashpal Sharma
- Dilip Vengsarkar
- Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan (captain)
- Gundappa Viswanath (reserve wicketkeeper)
- India's record: 0−3
- West Indies's record: 4−0 (champions, 1 match washed out)
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