The 1978 Women's Cricket World Cup was an international

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

tournament played in India from 1 to 13 January 1978. Hosted by India for the first time, it was the second edition of the

Women's Cricket World Cup The Women's Cricket World Cup is the quadrennial international championship of Women's One Day International Cricket tournament. Matches are played as One Day Internationals over 50 overs per team. There is also another championship for Tw ...

, after the inaugural 1973 World Cup in England. It was originally proposed that South Africa host the World Cup, but this was abandoned to conform with the Apartheid-era sporting boycott of the country. The Women's Cricket Association of India (WCAI) then made a successful bid, and served as the primary organiser, with the International Women's Cricket Council (IWCC) providing only limited oversight. Along with

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, which was making its debut, five other teams were originally invited –

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England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, the

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New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, and the

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. The Netherlands and the West Indies, which had both not previously participated, were forced to withdraw due to financial issues.Abhishek Mukherjee (15 January 2014)
"Australia Women lift 1978 World Cup — the tournament which was almost called off"
– CricketCountry. Retrieved 30 August 2015. The four teams that did compete (the lowest number in the tournament's history) played a

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...

of three matches each, with Australia going undefeated to claim its first title. Australia's captain, Margaret Jennings, led the tournament in runs, while her teammate, Sharyn Hill, led the tournament in wickets. Three of the five highest scorers as well as three of the five leading wicket-takers in the tournament were from Australia. Sharon Tredrea featured in both lists, being the second-highest wicket-taker and fourth-highest scorer of the tournament.

Squads

Information is only available for players who played at least one match at the tournament.

Venues

Warm-up matches

At least five warm-up matches were played against various local Indian teams, all but one of which came before the tournament. ---- ---- ---- ----

Group stage

Points table

* Note:

run rate In cricket, the run rate (RR), or runs per over (RPO), is the average number of runs a batting side scores per over. It includes all runs made by the batting side in the innings to that point of the game, both the runs scored by the batsmen an ...

was to be used as a tiebreaker in the case of teams finishing on an equal number of points, rather than net run rate (as is now common).

Matches

New Zealand vs Australia

India vs England

New Zealand vs India

India vs Australia

New Zealand vs England

England vs Australia

Both Australia and England went into the last match of the tournament undefeated, which meant it functioned as a ''de facto'' final, akin to the Uruguay v Brazil match at the 1950 Football World Cup. England's Megan Lear later recounted that the "most memorable part of hetournament was playing in front of crowds of 40,000 plus".(5 March 2009)
"'Our laundry laid out to dry on the rocks'"
– ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 30 August 2015.

Statistics

Most runs

The top five runscorers are included in this table, ranked by runs scored and then by

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

. Source
ESPNcricinfo

Most wickets

The top five wicket takers are listed in this table, ranked by wickets taken and then by

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

. Source
ESPNcricinfo

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:World Cup 1978 in women's cricket

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd ...

1978 in Indian cricket World Cup 1978 January 1978 sports events in Asia