The 2011 World Cup will be the 10th time it has been staged, but the tournament has steadily evolved since it was first played in 1975, in England - with players in whites, using red balls and playing all 15 games in daylight
Only 18 one-day internationals had previously been played before the 1975 Cup, contested by eight teams including East Africa. In the first match, Sunil Gavaskar batted through India's 60 overs for 36 not out as England won by 202 runs
England won all their group games but were blown away for 93 by Australia in the semi-finals as left-arm swing bowler Gary Gilmour took 6-14. But West Indies skipper Clive Lloyd hit 102 in the final as they beat the Aussies by 17 runs with the light fading
The same eight-team format applied in 1979, when Australia were weakened by defections to World Series Cricket and had to turn to youth. Pakistan, with stylish batsman Zaheer Abbas in their line-up, looked strong before losing to West Indies in the semis
In the final, hosts England were left to rue their lack of a genuine fifth bowler as they were hit around Lord's by Viv Richards and Collis King, and dawdled chasing their target of 287, handing Lloyd's all-conquering Windies their second World Cup triumph
In 1983, Zimbabwe, captained by Duncan Fletcher, were the only non-Test country taking part - and caused an upset by beating Australia. The number of group games was doubled to 24, and 15 of the 17 English counties hosted games
Fielding circles also made their World Cup debut in 1983, but it looked like a hat-trick of titles for the Windies until they were stunned by India, inspired by their captain Kapil Dev, who won the final by 43 runs after skittling the favourites for 140
The 1987 World Cup in India and Pakistan was the first outside England, the first with neutral umpires and the first played over 50 overs, while it was also the last to be played in whites, although it featured the same eight teams and group format as 1983
Pakistan made the last four at the expense of West Indies after Courtney Walsh sportingly declined to run Salim Jaffer out while backing up in a group game, while England beat India in the semis before losing to Australia by seven runs in the final
The 1992 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand was the biggest and brightest yet - featuring coloured kit, two white balls (one from each end), black sightscreens, floodlights and nine teams - including the readmitted South Africa - in a round-robin group
The terms "powerplay" and "pinch-hitter" had not yet been applied to cricket, but New Zealand took advantage of new fielding restrictions in the first 15 overs by giving opener Mark Greatbatch licence to blast, and handing spinner Dipak Patel the new ball
The infamous 1992 "rain rules" recalculated the team batting second's target from their opponents' highest-scoring overs. But this penalised teams for bowling maidens, as in the semis when South Africa's target of 22 from 13 balls became 22 from one
But England were losing finalists for the third time as veteran Pakistan captain Imran Khan led his "cornered tigers" to a 22-run victory and their first World Cup final success at a packed Melbourne Cricket Ground
In 1996, the World Cup returned to the Asian sub-continent - with Sri Lanka joining India and Pakistan as co-hosts. The tournament was expanded to 12 teams, arranged in two groups of six, with the top four in each group reaching the quarter-finals
South Africa, whose squad included left-arm chinaman bowler Paul Adams with his "frog in a blender" action, won all five of their games in Group B, while minnows United Arab Emirates and Netherlands managed only one win between them
With India struggling at 120-8 chasing 252 to beat Sri Lanka in the semis, the Calcutta crowd rioted, and match referee Clive Lloyd took the unprecedented step of awarding Sri Lanka the match by default. They beat Australia by seven wickets in the final
The Cup returned to England in 1999, albeit with games also played in Wales, Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands. The Duckworth-Lewis method was used for the first time in a World Cup, while the tournament had swollen to 42 games with a Super Six phase
Australia's star spinner Shane Warne missed the birth of his second child during the tournament, but hosts England soon had plenty of time to spend with their families after being pipped to a Super Six place by Zimbabwe on net run-rate
Pakistan finished top of Group B and top of the Super Six on net run rate; they thrashed New Zealand by nine wickets in the semis thanks to 3-55 from fiery paceman Shoaib Akhtar, aka "The Rawalpindi Express", and opener Saeed Anwar's 113 not out
The second semi produced one of the most incredible finishes in the history of cricket. With the scores level, South Africa's Lance Klusener set off for a run but his partner Allan Donald froze, dropped his bat and was run out - and Australia went through
After such a dramatic semi-final, any final would have been an anti-climax, and so it proved to be; man of the match Shane Warne took 4-33 as Pakistan were bowled out for 132, and Australia only needed 20.1 overs to secure the trophy for the second time
The 2003 World Cup was the first in Africa - but it began in controversy as Shane Warne tested positive for a banned diuretic, while England vacillated over whether to play a group game in Zimbabwe - a forfeit on safety grounds cost them a Super Six place
Politics never left the agenda as Zimbabwe players Henry Olonga and Andy Flower wore black armbands to mourn the "death of democracy" under Robert Mugabe's regime on the same day that England announced they would not be travelling there
Dubbed "chokers" after their 1999 experience, hosts South Africa failed to make the Super Six stage on their own turf. In their final group game, a misunderstanding of the Duckworth-Lewis regulations ensured a tie, when a win would have taken them through
With the 2003 event expanded to 14 teams playing 54 games, there was more chance for "minnows" to hit the headlines - Canada were skittled for 36 by Sri Lanka, but John Davison's 67-ball century against West Indies was the fastest World Cup hundred so far
Unlikely semi-finalists Kenya were 2003's surprise package before bowing out to India - but by now, Australia were clearly the best side in the world, winning all of their 11 matches, including an 125-run success over India in the Johannesburg final
The 2007 World Cup in the West Indies was marketed as a "carnival of cricket" - but it suffered organisational problems amid accusations that the Caribbean atmosphere had been stifled at grounds. With 16 teams now involved, it lasted a mammoth 47 days
Two of the Cup's biggest attractions, Pakistan and India, bowed out at the group stage at the hands of Ireland and Bangladesh, but worse news was to follow when Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer, a former England Test player, was found dead in his hotel room
Portly Bermuda spinner Dwayne Leverock, a 20-stone prison van driver, became a cult hero after dismissing England's Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood in a warm-up (a newspaper headline read "Bermuda Pie-Angle") before taking a superb catch against India
World Cup record-breakers included South Africa's Herschelle Gibbs, who became the first man to hit six sixes in an ODI over against the Dutch, while Sri Lanka's Lasith Malinga began the Super Eight phase by taking four South African wickets in four balls
But an oft-criticised tournament ended in farce - and near darkness - after the umpires misunderstood the rules following a rain break. Australia, now unbeaten in 29 World Cup games, never looked like surrendering their crown and eased past Sri Lanka
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