Shortly after everyone managed to catch their breath after Australia’s heroics in India, the world cup was back again! Thankfully this time at a relatively pleasing 4-year interval!
Although with a single glance at this edition’s stats, one might assume that it was a rather boring one as it ended with the same winner and runner-up, there was much more to it. This time the competition had one more team than the last time – 5, allowing the tournament to be bigger and mightier. This edition of the world cup is more commonly known as the ‘1982 Hansells Vita Fresh World Cup’ as it was sponsored and was played in New Zealand from 10th January to 7th February.
This was the third women’s cricket world cup and was of the triple round-robin format. This allowed the growing number of players spectators to compete and enjoy more matches, encouraging the interest to rise exponentially, inspiring more to watch, support, and play cricket.
The 1982 version was played between India, Australia, England, New Zealand, and an International XI.
Just like its previous editions, there were more participants to begin with, who later withdrew. These include the West Indies and the Netherlands. To compensate for this loss, an International XI was included.
Australia remained unbeaten throughout the tournament extending the tally to an impressive 24 (1978 – 1985), setting a world record for an unbeaten streak in ODIs which remains unbeaten to date. Along with them, their emulators England also put up an excellent performance winning 7 from their 12. These two clashed in the final yet again which Australia managed to clinch by 3 wickets, chasing down 152 in 59 overs. England chose to bat first however, was not able to put up a big score but still has plenty to be proud of. They were able to hold back Australia’s firepower and overpowered by making them sweat it out for every run. At the end of the match, it was reasonably apparent that another 10-20 runs on the board could have resulted in a different outcome.
Summing up, although this tournament failed to give us a new winner, it was still an essential one as this was around the time women’s cricket genuinely started picking up. This being India’s second world cup, the improvement was evident. They managed to win 4 this time, out of which 3 came against the International XI. Likewise, New Zealand was also just a win behind England with 6 wins from their 12. While many continued to disregard women’s cricket using the lack of new performers as an excuse, the girls proceeded to rise and shine.
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