Team history at Cricket World Cup - England (1975-2011)

The England squad

The nation which gave us the game of cricket have announced their 30-man list of probables for the upcoming World Cup. It is ironic actually how the inventors of cricket haven’t yet won the most important tournament of the game.

Alastair Cook is in charge as they look to win the trophy for the first time. England are one of the 3 top teams to have never won the cup, the other two being South Africa and New Zealand. However, they have the unique distinction of being runners-up as many as three times. Sri Lanka and Australia follow closely with two instances of ending up 2nd best in the tournament.

They have a strong squad on paper, and if they manage to adjust to Australian conditions well and click on the day of the match, they can bring the silverware home this time.

Performance Statistics

England have a decent winning percentage at World Cups. They were pretty consistent in the earlier editions of the World Cup but continued to deteriorate as the tournaments progressed. Here is an analysis of their match statistics and their best and worst oppositions.

Matches	Won	Lost	Tied	No Result	Win %age
66	39	25	1	1	59.09

Favourite opposition – West Indies

Matches	Won	Lost	Tied	No Result	Win %age
6	5	1	0	0	83.33

Least favoured opposition – Australia

Matches	Won	Lost	Tied	No Result	Win %age
6	2	4	0	0	33.33

Best skippers

Mike Brearley – He led England in their 1979 World Cup campaign when they reached the finals and lost to the West Indies. He has the best record in World Cups for England, and the team won 4 out of 5 games under his leadership.

Mike Gatting – He led the English campaign in 1987, the first time a World Cup was hosted outside the United Kingdom. The team lost to Allan Border’s Australia in the final.

Graham Gooch – Gooch was skipper in 1992, when the World Cup went to Australia and New Zealand. This time, they lost to Imran Khan’s Pakistan in the finals.

Best performance

England were runners-up in 1979, 1987 and 1992.

1979

The first three World Cups were hosted in England. The second edition saw England cruise through the group stage with wins against Australia, Canada, and Pakistan.

The semi-final against New Zealand was a very closely fought one. England put 221 on the board from 60 overs and New Zealand fell just 9 runs short when their quota of overs got over. Gooch top-scored for England with 71, while Mike Hendrick was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 3/55 in his 12 overs.

The final was played at Lord’s. Vivian Richards scored an impressive 138 as West Indies put on 286 for England to chase. They started with some promise as Boycott and skipper Brearley put on 129 for the first wicket. But the downfall that started with Gooch’s dismissal with the score at 183, never stopped as England lost 8 wickets in a space of 11 runs to hand West Indies a 92-run win. Joel Garner took 5 wickets and was the architect of the collapse.

1987

England won 4 out of 6 group games, losing to Pakistan twice while winning against Sri Lanka and West Indies.

The semi-finals saw them competing against India. Gooch scored a hundred as they put on 254 for India to chase. India never got going with any solid big partnership to carry them forward, and were all out for 219.

The final was played at the iconic Eden Gardens at Kolkata. Australia batted first and put on 253, with David Boon top scoring with 75. England fell just 7 runs short in their reply. Gatting, Athey and Lamb did make 40-plus scores, but none of it was enough to see England over the line as they kept losing wickets. The innings never gathered pace till the end when they fell 7 runs short, even though they were only 8 wickets down.

1992

They won 5 out of their 8 group games to progress to the next round.

The semi-final was against South Africa. Graeme Hick top-scored with 83 to help England put on 252. Rain came to England’s aid when they bowled. South Africa were given a revised target after the rain stopped play twice – they needed 21 to win from 1 delivery when play resumed a final time. Thus, ended a controversial semi-final that could have gone South Africa’s way had they got the 2 overs that were missed, which started a fierce debate on the rules concerning a rain-interrupted game.

England were undone in the final by the swing of the man of the match Wasim Akram. With only 250 to chase from 50 overs, they looked comfortable before Akram’s twin dismissals of Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis with their score at 141 shifted the balance of the game. Top scorer Fairbrother was dismissed 39 runs later, after which only a tail remained to be cleaned up, which was dually finished off with the English 22 runs short of the total.

The 1992 squad

Worst performance

2003

Nasser Hussain was the skipper in 2003, when the World Cup took place in South Africa. They forfeited the match against Zimbabwe. They did win against the Netherlands, Namibia and Pakistan, but then lost to India and Australia and were ousted from the tournament, as they were fourth in their pool and only the top 3 progressed. Zimbabwe had fewer wins than England, but they still went ahead since they got the points for the forfeited game.

Top performers

Gooch has been England’s top batsman in World Cups with 897 runs over four tournaments. Allan Lamb and Graeme Hick follow with 656 and 635 runs respectively. Kevin Pietersen is the only English batsman to have 2 World Cup hundreds to his name, which he scored against Australia and West Indies in 2007. Andrew Strauss holds the record for the highest score in a game with his 158 against India at Bangalore in 2011.

Ian Botham

Ian Botham has been the best bowler for England at the World Cup, with 30 wickets from 22 games. Phil DeFreitas follows in closely with 29. Flintoff and Anderson are next in line with 23 and 22 scalps. The best bowling performance in a game was by Vic Marks who took 5/39 against Sri Lanka in 1983, with Tim Bresnan’s 5/48 against India at Bangalore following closely at second position.

Memorable matches

We have already had a look at the tournaments in which England reached the finals. Let us have a look at the other editions as well.

Sunil Gavaskar watches on as Snow bowls in the first World Cup game ever

The first ever World Cup match was played between England and India at Lord’s on June 7, 1975. Mike Denness was the captain for England, while India was under the leadership of S Venkataraghavan. England put on an impressive 334, helped along by Dennis Amiss who scored 137 off 147 balls. The Indian reply was strange to say the least - they lost just 3 wickets in 60 overs and put 132 on the board.

Opener Sunil Gavaskar who scored 36 from 174 balls and was not out for the full time was responsible for shaping the Indian response. The 334 that England scored here remained their highest total in World Cup cricket until 2011 when they bettered it against the same opponents in another memorable game.

Just 11 days later on June 18, 1975, England put on their worst ever total in World Cups, a paltry 93 against Australia in the semi-finals at Headingley. Gary Gilmour picked up 6 wickets for the Aussies. However, Australia did not have a very comfortable time winning the game. They could only taste victory in the 29th over, and that too after they were 39/6 at one stage, following which they steadied the ship and lost no further wickets.

The 2011 edition of the World Cup saw a fascinating and memorable contest as well. India put on 338 batting first. Tendulkar scored 120 off just 115, while Gambhir and Yuvraj chipped in with quick fifties. Tim Bresnan took a 5-fer for the English.

In reply, man of the match Andrew Strauss played a captain’s knock of 158 and Ian Bell played his part with a handy 69. With the score reading 289/6 in the 46th over, the tailenders came to their rescue. Bresnan, Graeme Swann and Ahmed Shahzad hit a six each to claw England back into the game.

They needed 14 to win off the last over, and when Shahzad put the first delivery out of the ground, it looked all but over for India. Fortunately for the Indian team, they were able to contain Swann to just a single when 2 were needed off the last ball to end the game with a tie. Neither side deserved to lose that game and later on, both of them progressed to the next round.