# 1978 Women's Cricket World Cup

The 1978 Women's Cricket World Cup was an international cricket 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, 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, which was making its debut, five other teams were originally invited – Australia, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the West Indies. The Netherlands and the West Indies, which had both not previously participated, were forced to withdraw due to financial issues. The four teams that did compete (the lowest number in the tournament's history) played a round-robin tournament 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.
| Australia | England | India | New Zealand |
| Margaret Jennings (c) Elaine Bray Marie Cornish Valerie Farrell Lorraine Hill Sharyn Hill Wendy Hills Jan Lumsden Julie Stockton Raelee Thompson Janette Tredrea Sharon Tredrea Peta Verco | Mary Pilling (c) Jacqueline Court Heather Dewdney Rosalind Heggs Shirley Hodges Glynis Hullah Megan Lear Catherine Mowat Lynne Thomas Chris Watmough Margaret Wilks | Diana Edulji (c) Gargi Banerji Runa Basu Lopamudra Bhattacharji Sharmila Chakraborty Rajeshwari Dholakia Susan Itticheria Nilima Jogalekar Fowzieh Khalili Shubhangi Kulkarni Sandhya Mazumdar Ujwala Nikam Shobha Pandit Kalpan Paropkari Sudha Shah Anjali Sharma | Trish McKelvey (c) Liz Allan Eileen Badham Barbara Bevege Vicki Burtt Pat Carrick Sheree Harris Cheryl Henshilwood Linda Lindsay Karen Marsh Sue Rattray Edna Ryan Viv Sexton |

## Venues

* Eden Gardens, Calcutta – one match
* Keenan Stadium, Jamshedpur – one match
* Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, Hyderabad – two matches
* Moin-ul-Haq Stadium, Patna – two matches

## 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.
* 28 December 1977
| England | v | East Zone |
* Result unknown Eden Gardens, Calcutta, West Bengal
* 28 December 1977
| New Zealand | v | West Bengal WCA President's XI |
* Result unknown Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, Calcutta, West Bengal
* 28 December 1977
| Australia | v | Indian Universities Women's Team |
* Result unknown Pune, Maharashtra (exact venue unknown)
* 30 December 1977
| England | v | West Bengal WCA President's XI |
* Result unknown Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, Calcutta, West Bengal
* 2 January 1978
| England | v | East Zone |
* Result unknown Eden Gardens, Calcutta, West Bengal

## Group stage
### Points table

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | T | NR | Pts | RR |
| 1 | Australia | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3.264 |
| 2 | England | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2.657 |
| 3 | New Zealand | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2.777 |
| 4 | India | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.988 |
* Note: run rate 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

* 1 January Scorecard
| Australia 177 (49.2 overs) | v | New Zealand 111/8 (50 overs) |
| Wendy Hills 64 Barb Bevege 3/17 (9.2 overs) | | Trish McKelvey 37 Sharyn Hill 3/16 (10 overs) |
* Australia won by 66 runs Keenan Stadium, Jamshedpur, Bihar (now Jharkhand) Umpires: KVK Rao (IND) and Sukha Bose (IND)
* Australia won the toss and elected to bat.
* Peta Verco, Sharyn Hill (Aus), Cheryl Henshilwood, Edna Ryan, Pat Carrick, Sheree Harris, Vicki Burtt and Viv Sexton (NZ) all made their WODI debuts.

### India vs England

* 1 January Scorecard
| India 63 (39.3 overs) | v | England 65/1 (30.2 overs) |
| Diana Edulji 18 Margaret Wilks 2/6 (6 overs) | | Lynne Thomas 43* Diana Edulji 1/18 (10 overs) |
* England won by 9 wickets Eden Gardens, Calcutta, West Bengal Umpires: Bhairab Ganguly (IND) and Sunit Ghosh (IND)
* England won the toss and elected to bowl.
* Anjali Sharma, Diana Edulji, Fowzieh Khalili, Gargi Banerjee, Kalpan Paropkari, Lopamudra Bhattacharji, Nilima Jogalekar, Runa Basu, Sandhya Mazumdar, Sharmila Chakraborty, Shobha Pandit (Ind) and Catherine Mowat (Eng) all made their WODI debuts.

### New Zealand vs India

* 5 January Scorecard
| India 130/9 (50 overs) | v | New Zealand 131/1 (44 overs) |
| Ujwala Nikam 31* Linda Lindsay 2/26 (10 overs) Pat Carrick 2/26 (9 overs) | | Barb Bevege 67* Anjali Sharma 1/32 (10 overs) |
* New Zealand won by 9 wickets Moin-ul-Haq Stadium, Patna, Bihar
* India won the toss and elected to bat.
* Shubhangi Kulkarni, Sudha Shah, Susan Itticheria, Ujwala Nikam (Ind) and Linda Lindsay (NZ) all made their WODI debuts.

### India vs Australia

* 8 January Scorecard
| Australia 150/8 (50 overs) | v | India 79 (47.2 overs) |
| Sharon Tredrea 56 Lopamudra Bhattacharji 2/23 (10 overs) | | Shobha Pandit 17 Peta Verco 3/9 (9 overs) |
* Australia won by 71 runs Moin-ul-Haq Stadium, Patna, Bihar Umpires: KVK Rao (IND) and Sukha Bose (IND)
* India won the toss and elected to bowl.
* Rajeshwari Dholakia (Ind) made her WODI debut.

### New Zealand vs England

* 8 January Scorecard
| New Zealand 157 (49.4 overs) | v | England 160/3 (40.3 overs) |
| Barb Bevege 57 Jacqueline Court 4/29 (10 overs) | | Lynne Thomas 47 Sue Rattray 2/33 (6 overs) |
* England won by 7 wickets Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana)
* England won the toss and elected to bowl.
* Karen Hadlee (NZ) made her WODI debut.

### 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 [the] tournament was playing in front of crowds of 40,000 plus".
* 13 January Scorecard
| England 96/8 (50 overs) | v | Australia 100/2 (31.3 overs) |
| Shirley Hodges 26 Sharon Tredrea 4/25 (10 overs) | | Margaret Jennings 57* Glynis Hullah 2/9 (6 overs) |
* Australia won by 8 wickets Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana) Umpires: SA Swaminathan (IND) and V. K. Ramaswamy (IND)
* Australia won the toss and elected to bowl.

## Statistics
### Most runs

The top five runscorers are included in this table, ranked by runs scored and then by batting average.
| Player | Team | Runs | Inns | Avg | Highest | 100s | 50s |
| Margaret Jennings | Australia | 127 | 3 | 63.50 | 57* | 0 | 1 |
| Barbara Bevege | New Zealand | 126 | 3 | 63.00 | 67* | 0 | 2 |
| Lynne Thomas | England | 109 | 3 | 54.50 | 47 | 0 | 0 |
| Sharon Tredrea | Australia | 87 | 2 | 43.50 | 56 | 0 | 1 |
| Wendy Hills | Australia | 66 | 3 | 22.00 | 64 | 0 | 1 |
Source: ESPNcricinfo CricketArchive

### Most wickets

The top five wicket takers are listed in this table, ranked by wickets taken and then by bowling average.
| Player | Team | Overs | Wkts | Ave | SR | Econ | BBI |
| Sharyn Hill | Australia | 30.0 | 7 | 7.57 | 25.71 | 1.76 | 3/16 |
| Sharon Tredrea | Australia | 25.0 | 6 | 7.00 | 25.00 | 1.68 | 4/25 |
| Pat Carrick | New Zealand | 29.0 | 6 | 17.66 | 29.00 | 3.65 | 3/43 |
| Glynis Hullah | England | 21.1 | 5 | 6.80 | 25.40 | 1.60 | 2/2 |
| Peta Verco | Australia | 23.0 | 5 | 7.40 | 27.60 | 1.60 | 3/9 |
Source: ESPNcricinfo