World Championship of Cricket
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The Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket was a one day international tournament held in February and March 1985 in Australia.
This tournament was a Mini-World Cup involving all of the then Test match playing countries at the time celebrating 150 years of the Australian state of Victoria. The matches were played at the Melbourne (MCG) and Sydney (SCG) Cricket Grounds The seven teams were split into two groups.
Group A - Australia, England, India and Pakistan
Group B - New Zealand, Sri Lanka and the West Indies.
The tournament began with a clash between the two Ashes protagonists, Australia beating England. This was the first to be played underneath the MCG's floodlights. Neither of them got to the semi finals. India captained by Sunil Gavaskar won all their matches in the group with Pakistan as runners up. An 18 year old Wasim Akram made a name for himself taking 5-21 in a defeat of Australia.
In Group B, both New Zealand and the West Indies beat the then newcomers to Tests Sri Lanka to get to the semis. The match between the two was rained off.
In the semi finals India overcame New Zealand by 7 wickets and Pakistan beat favourites the West Indies by the same margin. This led to rivals India and Pakistan meeting in the final at the MCG whilst West Indies beat New Zealand in the 3rd place playoff.
In the final itself India restricted Pakistan to a score of 176-9 of 50 overs thanks to their bowling attack lead by Kapil Dev and Laxman Sivaramakrishnan. India went on to victory scoring 177-2 in 44 overs. Krish Srikkanth and man of the series Ravi Shastri scoring half centuries. India won this event, coupled with the 1983 Cricket World Cup win.
This was the only instance of the World Championship of Cricket.
