1987 Cricket World Cup

The 1987 Cricket World Cup in India and Pakistan was the first World Cup to be held outside England since its inception in 1975. Australia beat archrivals England by seven runs in the finals to lift the 1987 Cricket World Cup, also called the Reliance Cup.

In this edition of the World Cup, the overs were reduced from 60 to 50. The other features remained intact and the players came out in white uniforms and played with red balls. This time too eight counties tried their luck in lifting the trophy, but the nation that succeeded was Australia.

The participating countries were:

West Indies · England · India · Pakistan · Australia · New Zealand · Sri Lanka · Zimbabwe

India and Pakistan were the other two semifinalists, but failed to qualify for the finals, there by dashing the hopes of many of seeing an India-Pakistan World Cup final. The final was an extremely closely fought contest between Australia and England at the Eden Gardens stadium in Calcutta. Australia won by just 7 runs in a match that could have gone either way. Alan Border, the captain of Australia lifted the cup and David Boon was declared man of the match. The cricket fever of the Indian subcontinent gripped the whole world and fans from all over thronged to India and Pakistan from October 9 to November 8, 1987. Staduims were packed and the hysteria was unbeliavble! With Australia lifting the cup, the curtains fell on yet another successful ICC Cricket World Cup and the world began to wait for the next Cricket World Cup.