Sir Vivian Richards: The rise and fall of an empire

(ICC) When I look back at the time when ICC Cricket World Cup first came into being in 1975, I remember a time that was completely different from what it is today. There was no coloured clothing or white balls or black sightscreens. In fact, we wore cream-coloured tracks back then.

As a team we were very excited because we had just started coming into our own in terms of belief and that we were not too bad as far as cricket was concerned. We had some very good players in our team at that time – Clive Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge, Roy Fredericks, Alvin Kallicharran and Rohan Kanhai. All of us had a lot of experience playing county cricket.

We had a magnificent team ability-wise but even then knowing those conditions helped a lot.

At that time, a lot of one-day cricket was played in England, 40-over, 55-over and 60-over tournaments. That is where I was first introduced to this format and it was the same for most of us. As such this format of the World Cup wasn’t strange to us, and we were in a good place physically and mentally.

Read more at: International Cricket Council

[su_box title=”Sir Vivian Richards, former West Indies captain” style=”soft” box_color=”#b7e4f8″]One of the most aggressive and destructive batsmen ever to play the game, Sir Vivian Richards won the ICC Cricket World Cup in 1975 and 1979 with the West Indies. He played in the 1983 final and captained the side in the 1987 World Cup. Richards featured in 23 World Cup matches and scored 1,013 runs at an average of 63.31. One of his three World Cup centuries was in the 1979 final when he scored 138* off 157 balls. In 21 World Cup innings, he belted over 85 fours and 20 sixes.[/su_box]