Date 8 November 1987 | Attendance 95,000 | |
Event 1987 ICC Cricket World Cup Venue Eden Gardens, Calcutta, India Umpires Ram Gupta and Mahboob Shah | ||
The final of the Reliance World Cup was played in Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Sunday 8 November 1987. The match was won by the Australia who defeated England by 7 runs to lift their first ever World Cup trophy. This was the first ever Cricket World Cup final to be played outside England.
Details
Australia won the toss and chose to bat. David Boon (75 from 125 balls, 7 fours) top-scored for Australia, whose batsmen scored fluently. Australia posted 253 (5 wickets, 50 overs). Mike Veletta (45 from 31 balls, 6 fours) cut loose late in the innings, as Australia scored 65 runs from the last 6 overs of their innings.
In the English reply, opener Tim Robinson was out lbw for a first ball duck. Bill Athey (58 from 103 balls, 2 fours) top-scored, and England were almost on target,when captain Mike Gatting (41 from 45 balls, 3 fours, 1 six) handed back the initiative with the loss of his wicket to an attempted reverse sweep off the occasional off-spin bowling of Allan Border, which ended a growing partnership of 69 runs in 13 overs between him and Athey. Allan Lamb (45 from 55 balls, 4 fours) also posted a great innings, but it was in vain as the required run-rate for England began to rise. When England failed to score the last 17 runs from the final over, the cup went to Australia.