London: Since its establishment way back in 1909, the International Cricket Council (ICC) took it long to spread the game globally, but when they did, it became a success. However, the feat was not achieved overnight. In beginning, there were only Australia and England who were the teams that were significantly playing the game.
In fact, back then there was only one format — Tests — that was being played by the above-mentioned nations which later got termed as Ashes. However, over the course of the following decades, more teams started to get featured on the international circuit and with the emergence of one-day cricket in 1971, the first ICC tournament began four years later.
Over the course of time, ICC managed to organise a premier tournament for all three formats – T20I, ODIs and Tests to develop and boost the popularity of the sport as well the competitiveness among the nations. Let us see how things have panned out in inaugural tournaments of all the formats.
Prudential World Cup (1975): England hosted the first-ever cricket World Cup in 1975. It was actually officially known as the Prudential Cup for sponsorship reasons with eight teams participating. Australia, England, India, West Indies, Pakistan and New Zealand were the six nations at that time with the other two being Sri Lanka and a composite team from East Africa.
They were divided into two groups of four with the top two teams progressing through to the semifinals. Unlike today, each innings of a match lasted for 60 overs and the game was played in traditional whites with red balls in bright daylight.
West Indies, who came into the tournament as favourites with their emergence of the golden generation, lifted the first-ever World Cup title defeating Australia by 17 runs in the final. Their inspirational skipper Clive Lloyd clobbered an 85-ball 102 starring for the Caribbean side. New Zealand batsman, Glenn Turner topped the scoring charts for the tournament with 333 runs while Aussie Gary Gilmour with 11 scalps was the highest wicket-taker.
However, the first World Cup to be played in coloured clothes, white ball and under floodlights, was in 1992.
World T20 (2007): T20 format emerged on the scene after authorities found the new generation of spectators were not finding the same interest as before and were put off by the longer versions of the game while the reduced sponsorship also started to be seen. So to boost the popularity this new format was created in 2003.
A couple of years later, New Zealand hosted Australia in the first men’s full international T20 match at Eden Park in Auckland. With the popularity of the new format on the rise, ICC decided to organise the inaugural T20 World Cup. South Africa hosted the tournament with the 10 nations along with the finalists of the 2007 WCL Division One tournament – Kenya and Scotland.
The tournament was an instant hit right from the first game and was pivotal in grabbing attention and excitement from all over the world. Several new records were set up which was a thing of beauty. West Indies opener Chris Gayle hit a 57-ball 117 against South Africa in the curtain-raiser which also happened to be the first-ever T20I century while Aussie speedster Brett Lee took the first-ever hat-trick in this new format against Bangladesh.
A very notable event was the bowl out between India and Pakistan in a group game after the match ended in a tie. India won the bowl out qualifying for the Super 8s. The most memorable moment was when India’s Yuvraj Singh became the first player to hit six sixes in an over in T20Is against England, thus also hitting the fastest fifty (12 balls) in the process. Sri Lanka stamped their places in history books after scoring 260/6 against Kenya which was then the highest total by a team while also registering the largest margin of victory (172 runs).
India lifted the trophy beating Pakistan in a blockbuster of a final that went to the wire. Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi was the man of the tournament for his allround performances while his fellow teammate Umar Gul topped the wickets charts with 13 dismissals. Australian opener Matthew Hayden was the top run-getter with 265 runs.
World Test Championship (2021): The World Test Championship is not the exact tournament like the World Cup by any means. However, it’s the very first premier championship ICC tournament of the oldest format of the game. With the increasing popularity abundance of the number of fixtures in limited-over games being played across the year, Test cricket started tended to become a bit monotonous.
However, ICC came up with this unique thought of organising a premier tournament. They were not sure as to how things will turn up. The tournament was set up with all the top Test-playing nations battle it for two years before making it to the final.
It all started in 2019 when the inaugural World Test Championship season began with the evergreen rivalry of Australia and England in the Ashes. The classic duel between bat and ball was encouraged by pitches that offered much for the bowlers, unlike the shorter versions where the batsmen were the demy gods.
The art of classic seam bowling which looked to be on the demise was in full flow which makes the spectators fall in love with the red ball game again. Furthermore, that old-school never-ending suspense of whats and ifs in every session of a five-day game also played its part.
New Zealand lifted the trophy after defeating India by eight wickets in the final in 2021. Aussie batter Marnus Labuschagne topped the scoring charts with 1675 runs from 13 Tests at a stunning average of 72.82 hitting five centuries as well as nine fifties in the tournament with the highest score of 215. Ravichandran Ashwin was the top wicket-taker in the tournament with 71 wickets in 14 Tests at an average of 20.33.
