1978 Women's Cricket World Cup

Dates	1 – 13 January 1978
Administrator(s)	International Women's Cricket Council
Cricket format	Women's One Day International (50-over)
Tournament format(s)	Round-robin
Host(s)	India
Champions	Australia (1st title)
Runners-up	England
Participants	4
Matches	6
Most runs	Margaret Jennings (127)
Most wickets	Sharyn Hill (7)
← 1973 1982 →

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.^[1] 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.^[2][3] 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.^[4][5]

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

Australia[6]	England[7]	India[8]	New Zealand[9]
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

Jamshedpur

Calcutta

Patna

Hyderabad

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Four venues hosted matches at the 1978 Women's World Cup:

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

At least five warm-up matches were played against various local Indian teams, all but one of which came before the tournament.^[10]

Warm-up matches

28 December 1977

England	v	East Zone

Result unknown Eden Gardens, Calcutta, West Bengal

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28 December 1977

New Zealand	v	West Bengal WCA President's XI

Result unknown Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, Calcutta, West Bengal

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28 December 1977

Australia	v	Indian Universities Women's Team

Result unknown Pune, Maharashtra (exact venue unknown)

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30 December 1977

England	v	West Bengal WCA President's XI

Result unknown Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, Calcutta, West Bengal

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2 January 1978

England	v	East Zone

Result unknown Eden Gardens, Calcutta, West Bengal

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).^[11]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.^[2] England's Megan Lear later recounted that the "most memorable part of [the] tournament was playing in front of crowds of 40,000 plus".^[12]

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.

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

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