England Vs West Indies Final

Back to back finals

West Indies had won the first World Cup final at Lord's in 1975, beating Australia in a match that had lasted the better part of a full day and run on into the evening, and four years later they were back in the same final, against the hosts England, with Clive Lloyd again captain and Mike Brearley leading England. The tournament was still a new idea in 1979, only the second time it had been played, and the 60-over format meant a full day's cricket for the huge crowd that packed into Lord's for the occasion, many of them West Indian supporters who had travelled to London for the day. Brearley won the toss and chose to field first on a pitch that offered some early help to his seamers, a decision that looked sound as West Indies' top order struggled early on.

An uneasy start

West Indies did not begin fluently. Gordon Greenidge was run out for 9 and Desmond Haynes caught for 20, and at 36 for 2 Viv Richards had to build his innings carefully alongside Alvin Kallicharran, who made only 4 before he was bowled. England's seam attack of Ian Botham, Mike Hendrick and Chris Old bowled tightly through the middle overs, and Clive Lloyd came and went for 13, caught with the score on 99, and West Indies were 99 for 4 in the middle overs, well short of the platform a 60-over final was expected to need. England had every reason to believe they could restrict West Indies to a modest total and set up a comfortable chase of their own.

King changes the mood

Collis King joined Richards at the fall of the fourth wicket and immediately changed the tempo. He struck the England bowlers, Ian Botham, Mike Hendrick, Chris Old and Phil Edmonds, to all parts of the ground, reaching 86 from just 66 balls before he was caught. The pair added 139 for the fifth wicket, the innings' decisive partnership, and it was King's innings, played at well above a run a ball at a time when totals of 200 to 250 were still considered competitive in one-day cricket, that took the game away from England. King struck the ball with a clean, uncomplicated power that stood out even next to Richards at the other end. Between them they turned a stuttering innings into a genuinely testing total inside the space of little more than an hour, a burst of scoring that changed the mood of the whole ground.

Richards finishes it

Richards batted through to the end of the innings, unbeaten on 138 from 157 balls as West Indies' last five wickets fell around him for not many more runs. His innings spanned the entire 60 overs, from the uncertain early period through King's onslaught and into a final burst in which the lower order simply gave him the strike and watched him work. West Indies reached 286 for 9 from their 60 overs, Joel Garner and Michael Holding both out without scoring in the closing overs as Richards farmed what strike he could. Botham, Hendrick, Old and Edmonds each took two wickets and conceded within a run an over of each other, a tidy spread against an innings that had nonetheless got clear away from them by the finish.

Boycott and Brearley hold on

England's reply started solidly. Geoff Boycott and Mike Brearley put on 129 for the first wicket, the highest stand of the match by either side aside from Richards and King, but their approach was slow enough to leave England needing a sharp acceleration later, a trade-off between wickets in hand and time on the clock that would decide the match. Boycott made 57 and Brearley 64, and when both were out within six runs of each other, England were 135 for 2, still needing 152 from what remained of their overs. It left England's middle order, less used to attacking cricket than West Indies' own, with a steep rate to chase against an attack that included Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Colin Croft at their most fearsome.

Garner and the collapse

What followed was one of the fastest collapses seen in a World Cup final. Derek Randall and Graham Gooch put on 48 for the third wicket before both fell with the score at 183, and from there England lost their last six wickets for 11 runs. Joel Garner, tall enough to extract awkward, steepling bounce from a length that troubled batters used to a lower trajectory, took 5 for 38 in a devastating late spell that ran through the middle and lower order almost without interruption, and Michael Holding and Colin Croft shared the rest between them. England were bowled out for 194, and West Indies won by 92 runs to retain the trophy they had won in 1975, a collapse so sudden that England's supporters in the crowd had barely registered the chase was in trouble before it was already over.

The second World Cup

Viv Richards was named Man of the Match. West Indies had now won both World Cups played, and would reach a third consecutive final in 1983 before losing it, a result covered elsewhere in this archive, ending a run that had made West Indies the dominant force in the young, still developing history of one-day international cricket through the second half of the 1970s. The full scorecard from Lord's, with every partnership and fall of wicket, is on this page. See how the two sides were built on the West Indies and England team pages, and in The Chase you can bat first with West Indies, recover from a shaky start like Richards and King did, and try to defend a total against an England chase built around Boycott and Brearley.

Sources

• CricArcade World Cup archive: the full scorecard, fall of wickets and partnerships on this page
• ESPNcricinfo: 1979 Prudential World Cup final, Lord's, scorecard and report
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1980: the Prudential World Cup