England's Geoff Boycott.

Tony Becca, Contributing Editor

With the West Indies taking on India at Edgbaston, New Zealand up against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge, and Pakistan taking on Canada at Headingley, the feature match on opening day of World Cup 1979 was the clash between England and Australia at Lord's.

That was the match where all the fireworks were expected to take place. In spite of a promising start, however, it was nothing more than a wet squib.

As it turned out, it was almost as disappointing as the one at Edgbaston where the West Indies won with nine wickets in hand; at Trent Bridge where New Zealand won with nine wickets in hand; and, at Headingley, where Pakistan defeated Canada with eight wickets in hand and 19.5 overs to spare.

At Lord's, England thumped Australia with six wickets and 12.5 overs to spare in what, despite the fact that they lost the toss and were sent to bat on a pitch favouring seam bowling, was a disappointing show by one of the world's big teams.

Disappointing memory

And it was more disappointing remembering that they had started confidently, that with Andrew Hilditch scoring 47 and Warrick Darling 25, they were 56 without loss at one stage, and that with Allan Border scoring 34, they were 97 for one at anotherstage, before crawling to 159 for nine off their allotted 60 overs.

Apart from Hilditch, Darling and Border, only Graham Yallop, batting at number five, reached double figures as pacers Bob Willis, 20 runs off 11 overs, Mike Hendrick, 24 off 12, and Chris Old who conceded 33 runs off his 12 overs, stifled Australia's batsmen and forced them to slit their own throats.

Bringing back memories

In a madness that brought back memories of the final four years earlier when five of their batsmen were run out, Australia, at one time on 132 for four, lost four wickets by the run-out route.

One made it 132 for five, another made it 137 for six, then it was 153 for eight, and 153 for nine.

It was an innings in which Geoff Boycott, England's master opening batsman who got rid of Hilditch and Kim Hughes, preened himself with two wickets for 15 runs off six overs of lollipop bowling.

With Rodney Hogg removing Boycott, leg before for one at four for one, and with Alan Hurst taking care of Derek Randall for one at five for two, Australia made a great start before they ran into Graham Gooch, who shared a lovely third-wicket partnership of 108 with captain Mike Brearley.

Brearley, who opened the innings, scored 44, Gooch scored 53, an they were both back in the pavilion at 124 for four, England were safe - as underlined by David Gower, 22 not out, and Ian Botham, 18 not out, who stroked the ball confidently while gathering the remaining 36 runs needed for victory.