World Series Cricket

In the late 1970s, the game of cricket was entering into a bit of a revolution. In the wake of this, media kingpin, Kerry Packer, set to take an advantage of this. This advantage took the form of a cricket league, which was known as World Series Cricket.

Heraclitus of Ephesus, a Greek philosopher, is quoted as saying, "change is the only constan"” in life. Cricket ever since its inception as a competitive sport has traditionally been averse to change. For long periods of time, its jealously guarded its novelty as a sport for the English speaking elite or their colonial subjects. Something unlike the football playing or following crowd of commons rather a sublime activity reserved for gentlemen. Rarely a sport has been so much immersed in traditions and one which prides itself for its values, exclusivity, records and idiosyncrasies. It remained the same untill the dawn of the seventies decade in the last century.

The cricket world of the 1960s was not greatly dissimilar to its inaugural face of ninety odd years ago when the first Test match was played at Melbourne in 1877. The "Swinging Sixties," which started with the cricket’s first ever tied test, was a actually a lull before the seventies storm. History of international cricket is spread over 140 years but no ten year period has seen the whole sale change implemented so swiftly and across the board as in the 1970s. The transformation of cricket from the pastime of gentlemen to a modern day professional sport was a revolution second to none. The journey from classes to masses was rapid and made significant impact in the lives of players as well.

For a fleeting moment revisit the cricket world of 1969. The world of Test matches played in white flannels and commentated upon by doyens of cricket voices like John Arlott of England or Alan McGilvray of Australia. The days when appeals were mere polite enquiries and bowling 120 overs a day was considered a norm. Fielding was a poor third distant cousin to the arts of batting and bowling. Then came the seventies and the changes started hitting cricket right left and center.

Between 1973 and 1977, the cost of living in England rose by 96%, whereas the remuneration for an England cap in that period rose only by 40%, from £150 to £210. At the same time, the basic pay of capped county players averaged £2600 a season, rising to perhaps £3000 with bonuses, placing them below the average wage of a skilled worker.

In addition, professional cricketers weren't accorded the same rights as employees in any other job, be it the lack of a proper pension or the restrictions on moving to another county. In Australia, relations between cricketers and their governing bodies were even more fraught. The cause of the former was taken up by media magnate Kerry Packer. An inveterate gambler and sporting enthusiast, Packer saw in cricket a lucrative product unexploited by the authorities and twice bid for the exclusive right to televise the cricket in Australia, in 1975-76 and the following year.

It all started with the advent of one day limited overs international cricket. The abandonment of the Melbourne Test match resulted in the first ever one dayer being arranged between England and Australia in January 1971. Within four and a half years of that unplanned 40 overs a side match, the first limited overs World Cup tournament was staged in England. Before the seventies decade was out the cricketing world had seen two World Cups both sponsored by Prudential Insurance and both lifted by Clive Lloyd (of West Indies) at Lord’s and ODI cricket had carved its niche in the conservative cricket world.

Viv Richards, whose electric fielding broke the back of Australia’s chase in the 1975 final by effecting multiple run outs, hit a gorgeous century four years later in the second final against England to put up a daunting total well beyond England’s capabilities considering the firepower of the West Indian pace attack.

In between the two World Cups, the Kerry Packer "revolution” stung the cricket world and brought in many new concepts which are now considered as a part and parcel of the game. A fight over television coverage rights between the Australian Cricket Board and the Channel Nine initiated launch of parallel cricket universe by the Australian media tycoon, Kerry Packer. Apart from luring the best of the cricket talent from across the globe with previously unimagined lucrative salaries.

Packer introduced innonative concepts like day-night cricket, coloured clothing, white ball and exquisite television coverage with former players like Bill Lawry and Richie Benaud as commentators. All these innovations were looked down upon by the traditionalists. Packer brand of cricket was initially labeled as a circus and pyjama cricket by the ruling conservative cricket boards across the cricketing world and players were branded as mercenaries and ousted from respective national outfits. However, it took less than two years for sanity to prevail and changes to be accepted and players integrated back into the main stream cricket.

Tony Greig, the English captain, became a champion for cricketers’ rights and was instrumental in setting up the entire Kerry Packer circus as his technical advisor and chief recruiter. He was ably supported by the Australian out spoken skipper, Ian Chappell and Pakistan’s Asif Iqbal both known for raising their voices for players’ rights previously. Greig, was also the biggest advocate of the protective head gear which was also introduced in the same period.

Greig shocked the entire cricket fraternity by appearing nude in a print advertisement for St. Peters (SP) brand wearing only cricket gear over his tall frame. India's Sunil Gavaskar invented his own protective cap and Aussie Graham Yallop batted in a test match using motor bike helmet. Viv Richards, however, always batted in his West Indian cap and never ever used anything else.

The main reason for the haste in introduction of the high quality protective gear was the West Indian team which started unearthing a never-ending supply of fast bowlers all of whom looked menacing, clocked above 90 mph and bowled mean lengths directed at psyching the batsman out and hurting him so badly that mere survival became name of the game against their ferocity.

Scoring runs was a luxury not everyone afforded against their four pronged pace attack. Andy Roberts was the first one from this fearsome production line quickly followed first by the duo of Michael Holding and Wayne Daniel and then by Colin Croft and Big Bird Joel Garner.

Their defections to Packer saw discovery of even more fearsome duo of Sylvester Clarke and Malcolm Marshall. Just to think of the fact that bowlers like Franklyn Stephenson and Ezra Moseley never even were able to break into the sixteen or seventeen strong touring squad, speaks volumes about the wealth of pace bowling riches at the disposal of Clive Lloyd and his successors. This attack, coupled with batting might of Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Kallicharran and Lloyd, created arguably the strongest team ever to grace a cricket field.

While the West Indian pace battery was busy in terrorising batsmen of opposing team with their constant diet of short and fast stuff, Sarfraz Nawaz introduced a technique which changed the dynamics of pace bowling in the years to come and is now considered a lethal weapon for any pace bowler’s armory. That would be the reverse swing which was first restricted to Pakistani pace bowlers like Sarfraz, Imran Khan and his disciples, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. Who can forget Sarfraz’s magical spell of taking seven wickets for one run at Melbourne when Australia were 300 plus for three chasing a 380 runs target.

The rest of the world looked at reverse swing suspiciously and few even considered it as cheating. These murmurs of illegality lasted only untill Pakistanis shared their trade secret around the pace bowling fraternity around the world and England’s Darren Gough became the first non-Pakistani pacer to master this art. From there onwards, it became a fast bowling skill.

Standards of fielding rose exponentially along with the levels of sledging and appealing on the field. While Tony Greig introduced the suicidal hand shaking fielding positions like silly mid-on and silly mid-off on the 1972-73 tour of the sub-continent. Dennis Lillee, the great Aussie fast bowler, pioneered the art of intimidating umpires by appeals which are more like threats rather an enquiry for dismissals. Ian Chappell, the aggressive Australian captain, gave new dimension to the on-field chatter and the art of sledging was born and it was refined further by Javed Miandad and subsequent generations of Aussie cricketers.

So, if a cricket buff actually had the opportunity to time travel from 1969-70 to 1979-80 he would have actually been more surprised at the changes in his favorite sport rather than the fact that he has fast forwarded ten years in a jiffy. From white ball to red ball, from five days to one day, from cap to helmet, from sunlight to floodlight, from white uniform to colorful ones, from conventional swing to reverse swing and from gentlemen to sledgers, it all started in the 70s and remains in existence to this day.

World Series Cricket (WSC) was a commercial professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 which was organised by Kerry Packer and his Australian television network, Nine Network. WSC ran in commercial competition to established international cricket. World Series Cricket drastically changed the nature of cricket.

Three main factors caused the formation of WSC — a widespread view that players were not paid sufficient amounts to make a living from cricket or reflect their market value and that following the development of colour television and increased viewer audiences of sports events, the commercial potential of cricket was not being achieved by the established cricket boards and Packer wished to secure the exclusive broadcasting rights to Australian cricket, then held by the non-commercial, government-owned Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), to realise and capitalise on the commercial potential of cricket.

After the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) refused to accept Channel Nine's bid to gain exclusive television rights to Australia's Test matches in 1976, Packer set up his own series by secretly signing agreements with leading Australian, English, Pakistani, South African and West Indian players, most notably England captain, Tony Greig, West Indies captain, Clive Lloyd, Australian captain, Greg Chappell, future Pakistani captain, Imran Khan and former Australian captain, Ian Chappell. Packer was aided by businessmen, John Cornell and Austin Robertson, both of whom were involved with the initial set-up and administration of the series.

Ian Chappell summed up the quality of World Series Cricket by saying it was the toughest cricket that he ever played (having all the best players in the world involved).

In the mid-1970s, the Australian television industry was at a crossroads. Since its inception in 1956, commercial television in Australia had developed a reliance on imported programs, particularly from the United States, as buying them was cheaper than commissioning Australian productions. Agitation for more Australian-made programming gained impetus from the "TV: Make it Australian" campaign in 1970. This led to a government-imposed quota system in 1973.

The advent of colour transmissions in 1975 markedly improved sport as a television spectacle and, importantly, Australian sport counted as local content. However, sports administrators perceived live telecasts to have an adverse effect on attendance. The correlation between sports, corporate sponsorship, and television exposure was not evident to Australian sports administrators at the time.

Determined to get some cricket on Channel Nine, Packer put an offer to the Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB) to telecast the Australian tour of England scheduled for 1977. His interest was further stimulated by a proposal to play some televised exhibition matches, an idea presented to him by Western Australian businessmen John Cornell and Austin Robertson. Robertson managed several high-profile Australian cricketers such as Dennis Lillee, while Cornell was Paul Hogan's business manager and on-screen sidekick.

Packer took this idea, then fleshed it out into a full series between the best Australian players and a team from the rest of the world. His mistrust of cricket's administrators deepened when the ACB recommended the TCCB accept an offer for their broadcasts rights from the ABC, even though ABC's $210 000 offer was only 14% of the offer from Packer.

For the first time, the game's officialdom had a demonstration of Packer's wherewithal: he immediately doubled his original offer and won the contract. He never forgot the machinations involved in winning the bid.

Packer's planning of the proposed "exhibition" series was audacious. In early 1977, he began contracting a list of Australian players provided by recently retired Australian Test captain Ian Chappell. A bigger coup was achieved when Packer convinced the England captain Tony Greig to not only sign on but to act as an agent in signing many players around the world.

By the time the season climaxed with the Centenary Test match between Australia and England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 1977, about two dozen players had committed to Packer's enterprise, which as yet had no grounds to play on, no administration and was secret to all in the cricket world. It was a measure of the players' dissatisfaction with official cricket that they were prepared to sign up for what was still a vague concept and yet keep everything covert.

By the time the Australian team arrived to tour England in May 1977, thirteen of the seventeen members of the squad had committed to Packer. News of the WSC plans were inadvertently leaked to Australian journalists, who broke the story on 9 May. Immediately, all hell broke loose in the hitherto conservative world of cricket.

Not unexpectedly, the English were critical of what they quickly dubbed the "Packer Circus" and reserved particular vitriol for the English captain Tony Greig, for his central role in organising the break-away. Greig retained his position in the team but was stripped of the captaincy and ostracised by everyone in the cricket establishment, most of whom had been singing his praises just weeks before.

It seemed certain that all Packer players would be banned from Test and first-class cricket. The Australian players were a divided group and the management made their displeasure clear to the Packer signees.

Dispirited by this turn of events and hampered by poor form and indifferent weather, Australia crashed to a 3–0 defeat, surrendering the Ashes won two years before. In light of the controversies, the Sydney Gazette article clearly showed West Indian captain Clive Lloyd interviewed after leaving the Caribbean team to join Packer, Lloyd stated it was nothing personal, it was clearly earning a more comfortable source of income. That interview created waves across the Caribbean and even in world cricket. It was then realised that the sport had been transformed into one's livelihood.

In a court case, official cricket won a series of minor victories – Packer was unable to use the terms "Test match" or call their team of Australians "Australia" or use the official rules of cricket, which are the copyright of the Marylebone Cricket Club.

So, the five-day matches became "Supertests," played by the "WSC Australian XI" and Richie Benaud set to work writing rules and playing conditions for the series. Most importantly, WSC was shut out of traditional cricket venues, so Packer leased two Australian rules football stadiums (VFL Park in Melbourne and Football Park in Adelaide), as well as Perth's Gloucester Park (a trotting track) and Sydney's Moore Park Showground.

The obvious problem was preparing grass pitches of suitable standard at these venues, where none had existed previously. By common consensus, it was considered impossible to create the pitches in such a short time.

However, Packer hired curator, John Maley, who pioneered the concept of "drop-in" pitches. These pitches were grown in hothouses outside the venue, then dropped into the playing surface with cranes. This revolutionary technique was the unsung highlight of the first season of WSC – without them, WSC would have been a folly.

Another unexpected element of the series was the emergence of a West Indian side. The concept was originally envisaged as Australia vs. the Rest of the World. When the West Indians were offered contracts that would pay them more than they could earn in an entire career, they all signed with alacrity. However, WSC used the West Indian players in the Rest of the World team as well.

The first WSC game, a "Supertest" between the Australians and the West Indians began at VFL Park on 2 December 1977. The standard of the cricket was excellent but the crowds were poor, which was emphasised by the stadium's capacity of 79,000. The official Test match played in Brisbane at the same time, featuring the weakened Australian team and India, attracted far more spectators.

Although the Packer players were depressed by the small crowds and lack of atmosphere - the Australian public preferred to watch a gripping Test series against India, which Australia won 3-2; WSC lacked nothing in intensity as the world cricketing elite competed against each other for substantial sums of prize money. "It was brutal cricket out there," recalled Barry Richards. "Packer would not have it any other way." When a rising delivery from Jeff Thomson hit Underwood on the hand, one of the fielders approached Underwood, asking, "How's the hand?" "It's the right hand," said Underwood, to which the fielder replied, "Shame, we were aiming for the left."

By 1979, the ACB was in desperate financial straits and faced the prospect of fighting an opponent who had seemingly endless cash resources. In two seasons, the combined losses of the two biggest cricket associations, New South Wales and Victoria, totalled more than half a million dollars. Kerry Packer was also feeling the financial pinch – many years later, WSC insiders claimed that the losses he incurred were very much higher than the amounts quoted at the time.

During March of that year, Packer instigated a series of meetings with then chairman of the ACB board, Bob Parish, which hammered out an agreement on the future of Australian cricket.

When Parish announced the truce on 30 May 1979, a surprise was in store for followers of the game. Not only had Channel Nine won the exclusive rights to telecast Australian cricket, it was granted a ten-year contract to promote and market the game through a new company, PBL Marketing. The ACB capitulation infuriated the English authorities and the ICC as they had provided much in the way of financial and moral support to the ACB, which now appeared to have sold out to Packer. According to the 1980 issue of Wisden:

The WSC Australian players (on tour in West Indies at the time) had no input into the negotiations. This left some disillusioned and apprehensive that they would suffer discrimination from the ACB in the coming years. The ACB opted to not select WSC-contracted players for the tours of England (for the 1979 World Cup) and India (for six Tests) later in the year. Both tours produced sub-standard Australian performances, and both were led by Kim Hughes.

For the 1979–80 season, Greg Chappell was restored as Australian captain and the team contained an even mixture of WSC and non-WSC players. The season's schedule was similar to the WSC format. England and West Indies toured, playing three Tests each against Australia, with a triangular one-day tournament (the World Series Cup) interspersed among the Tests.

Australia's results were mixed: in the Test matches, they defeated England 3–0 (having lost 5–1 to the same opponents the previous summer) but lost 0–2 to West Indies and they failed to make the final of the one-day tournament. The format of the season received heavy criticism but still made a healthy profit; much of which went to PBL rather than the ACB.

A unique player story would be that of Derek Underwood.

On 11 April, 1977, the potential recruits went to the Dorchester hotel in London to meet Packer, who said that if the new venture was to be successful, the contracts needed to be rigorous and drawn up quickly. At the same time, he reassured them that he would do everything in his power to help them; both sides had to sign the contracts in a spirit of mutual trust.

Underwood rather reluctantly signed up, since he'd wanted independent legal advice to clarify a few points but to Austin Robertson, a former Australian Rules footballer and trusted Packer lieutenant, time was of the essence. Aside from the proposals getting mired in delay, should players seek legal advice before signing, he feared that news would leak about the venture days before the Australian touring side left home for England, which could well scupper it.

Once Underwood had signed the contract, he took it to his solicitors and they made various suggestions as to how it might be improved. Under the contract as it was originally drafted, JP Sports, Packer's new business interest, could theoretically stop him playing any cricket during the English summer.

Later, when he met Packer's legal adviser, Underwood put the suggestions to him and it was partly because of him that the contracts were later amended, Packer giving a written undertaking that WSC players could play county cricket.

Despite being one of the country's leading cricketers, Underwood found it extremely difficult to achieve any degree of security. In line with other counties, Kent paid poorly. Even on the highest of scales used by the county in assessing the remuneration of its players, Underwood's basic salary was a mere £2 665 in 1975, £ 2821 in 1976 and £3 155 in 1977.

Other sources of income included £600 from winning bonuses, Test match fees of £210 per match and £3 550 from the tour to India in 1976-77, netting him about £7 600 in that tax year. Despite having lived at home until his marriage in 1973, he reckoned he would have found it very difficult to support his wife had he not had a benefit in 1975.

What also concerned him was his lack of qualifications outside of cricket and his inability to forge an alternative career, evidenced by the casual winter employment he'd undertaken over the years. Financial considerations aside, he was attracted by the idea of playing top-class cricket against the world's best players and overhauling the way the game was run.

He didn't think a challenge to the game's governing body to be a bad thing. "In general, [the establishment] seems to fear change (as advanced by their initial opposition to one-day cricket, which has since proved extremely popular) and they incline to the view that 'the game is the thing' and that it does not really matter who wins," he wrote. "It is not surprising therefore that insufficient attention is paid to the interests of the players and for this reason I would like to see a more professional approach to the game."

When the news broke on 9 May that Greig, Alan Knott and Underwood were joining WSC, the reaction in England was overwhelmingly hostile. John Woodcock wrote, "It is an astonishing situation when the captain of England goes to two of his best players (Knott and Underwood) and on behalf of an Australian impresario buys their services, knowing that it will almost certainly drastically reduce, if not bring to an end, their appearances for England."

In the Sunday Express, Denis Compton accused the Packer players of betraying their country. Further criticism came from Geoff Boycott, who accused the three players of "prostituting themselves for money" and Mike Turner, the influential secretary of Leicestershire, who said that "Greig's belief that these pirate international matches will benefit the ordinary player is nonsensical."

The Cricket Council, cricket's governing body in the UK, viewed Greig's clandestine role in the recruitment of players as a breach of trust in his relationship with them and consequently sacked him as captain. While Greig remained the main target of opprobrium, Knott was surprised by the level of hostility he encountered. He thought that most people would agree with his opinion that it was healthy to have two employers in the game. To those that knew him well, his decision to join Packer came as little surprise. He believed in the concept of WSC, since it strongly promoted player welfare.

In the case of Underwood, his defection occasioned more debate. His father, Leslie, said little but deep down he harboured reservations that his son had turned his back on English cricket and what it meant to him; chairman of selectors, Alec Bedser, thought it "seemed out of character for a devoted team man" and Bob Taylor, a leading opponent of WSC, expressed surprise that Underwood had signed.

Taylor later wrote, "Underwood, a great bowler, would be an automatic choice for England for years to come and he always seemed a true traditionalist, a supporter of old-fashioned standards. I am sure he regretted the move, but he would never admit it."

A true patriot in every sense, representing his country meant everything to Underwood and he would go the extra mile to snatch victory or avoid defeat. Equally, in an era when sledging and gamesmanship had become more commonplace, he remained a model of deportment, clean-shaven, smartly dressed and courteous to all, embracing the decorous traditions of Canterbury Cricket Week rather than the brash, gladiatorial version of the game envisaged by Packer.

Cricket had always been a poor man's game, not least during the inflation-ridden 1970s. Between 1973 and 1977, the cost of living in England rose by 96%, whereas the remuneration for an England cap in that period rose only by 40%, from £150 to £210. At the same time, the basic pay of capped county players averaged £2 600 a season, rising to perhaps £3 000 with bonuses, placing them below the average wage of a skilled worker.

In addition, professional cricketers weren't accorded the same rights as employees in any other job, be it the lack of a proper pension or the restrictions on moving to another county. Recalling the Kent committee as one of the stingiest on the circuit - although they did grant him two benefit matches - Underwood said, "You would think twice about going out for a meal and try and save your meal allowance. Players had little or no representation on the committee and virtually no security of employment. There was a total lack of sensitivity and of understanding what the life of a professional cricketer was all about by those running the club in the 1970s."

Greig rang Underwood, getting him out of bed, to inform him about Packer's new venture in Australia, a series of "Tests" between an Australian XI and a Rest of the World XI. A natural salesman, Greig told him about the handsome pay cheque he would receive but warned him that if he chose to participate, he would be unavailable to tour with England for the next three winters. While attracted by the significant sums involved, of some £40 000, Underwood fretted about a possible Test and county ban, given the inevitable backlash that WSC would provoke.

He later defended his motives in an interview with Alan Lee of the Sunday Telegraph. "There seemed to be a sense of horror that I, of all people, should have gone. People apparently put a lot of faith in records and thought I, too, should do so. But records don't bring up a family. I had been in and out of the Test side for years; there was no security. If I injured myself, I might never play again. They didn't think of that."

Later, he told the High Court, "One of my greatest worries has always been: what would I do when my playing career is over? I have no qualifications. Up until now I have been unable to save much from my income. It's nice to feel that at last I am earning the sort of money that other international sportsmen have enjoyed for years."

The late finishes meant the players adapted to a new routine. Finishing at 22.30 and returning to the hotel about midnight, Underwood liked to unwind with a couple of beers at the bar before going to bed at 01:00 and rising about 10:00.

The extensive hours and the quality of the opposition called for a greater emphasis on fitness and practice. According to World XI team-mate, Mike Procter, Underwood was an old-style player who had to change his ways. Procter wrote, "I'll never forget the look of horror on his face in the first year of WSC when he was told to run round the ground. He'd never had an injury in nearly 20 years of cricket, and he relied on simply bowling to keep himself fit. But he had to do it because you [couldn't] make an exception for him."

In the first game, a practice one between the WSC Australian XI and the World XI at Melbourne's VFL Park, watched by a crowd of 1 000, Greig introduced Underwood to the attack before lunch on the first day and minutes later, Underwood bowled Greg Chappell, playing no stroke. Beginning with 4 for 60, Underwood went one better against an Australian XI at Rockhampton; his 6 for 34 there included a hat-trick. He continued to perform creditably and in the final of the Country Cup in Canberra his last-wicket stand of 57 with John Snow helped the World XI to an 85-run victory over the Australians.

Back in Kent, the cricket sub-committee unanimously resolved on 12 January 1978 that, they had "no option but to pay and consider for team selection the Packer players along with other members of staff." That view was endorsed by the general committee in February, which voted 14 to 7 to to honour the implied contracts for 1978, which covered the summer only; meaning that the players were free agents in the winter.

The following month, the committee decided that all Kent players would have two-year contracts, apart from the Packer ones, who would have only a one-year contract and that their services would not be required after 9 September 1978 and that they would be given formal notice in due course.

After beginning with a round of one-day games in New Zealand, WSC returned to Australia to play a similar format to the previous year, except a fourth side, the Cavaliers, was added. Underwood took 5 for 56 against an Australian XI in a one- day game in Perth, and then six wickets, five of them recognised batsmen, against the same opposition in the World XI's 102-run victory in the first Supertest. He also took a valuable 3 for 68 in their thrashing of West Indies in the next match.

In a form of cricket in which fast bowlers dominated, he was the only spinner who emerged from WSC with his reputation intact. In five Supertests, he took 16 wickets at 27.56. It was his batting, however, that caught the eye in the Supertest final against the Australians at the SCG. Entering at 104-9 in reply to the home side's 172, he was dropped in the gully when on 2. Capitalising on his reprieve, he added 64 with South African fast bowler, Garth le Roux.

The Australians were rattled, as Underwood discovered in their second innings, when the last-wicket pair of Dennis Lillee and Lenny Pascoe were eking out every run. During one over bowled by Le Roux to Pascoe, Lillee strode halfway down the pitch to encourage his partner. On the penultimate delivery, Pascoe pushed the ball to Underwood at mid-off. Noting that Lillee had left his crease and was off chatting to Pascoe, Underwood told him that he could have run him out because the ball wasn't yet dead. Unimpressed with this mildest of rebukes, Lillee saw red, telling Underwood what he thought of him and he continued to remonstrate with him after Pascoe was bowled next ball.

Seeing their team-mate under attack, Procter and Clive Rice came to his rescue and received similar treatment for their pains. Set 224 to win, the World XI eased home by five wickets owing to an undefeated century from Richards, described as magnificent by Underwood. "He was so poised at the crease and had such natural timing," Underwood said later. "He didn't crunch the ball off the bat, it just flowed.

In WSC, he stood out even in that illustrious company. That marked the end of Underwood's participation in WSC because, with both sides losing money, a compromise was reached between the ACB and Packer in May 1979. Looking back at the enterprise many years later, Underwood claimed that he never had a moment's regret about signing up. "It was a decision I made for my family. I also look back on it as a great cricketing experience. There's a nucleus of players like Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge, with who I share a bond. We were rebels, but we helped cricket progress."

World Series Cricket changed the game in many ways. Due to the punishing schedule, cricketers had to be fitter than ever before.

Night matches have become very common, in all forms of the game, with the recent innovation of the Day-night Test proving popular. Players became full-time professionals and at least in the larger cricketing nations, are very well-paid, mainly through television rights; broadcasters now have a huge say in the running of the game.

With the advent of Twenty20 cricket, players can now play in many domestic leagues around the world and attract high salaries, partly due to broadcast rights. The Indian Premier League only trails the NFL in terms of per-match value of broadcast rights, sitting at USD 15.1 million per match, for a deal worth USD 6 billion running from 2023-27

However, the traditional form of the game, first-class cricket and Test matches, is still played around the world and in recent seasons, has challenged one-day cricket for the interest of the public. Indeed, membership of a Test Cricket side is often seen as being more prestigious for players, due both to the more challenging nature of the format and to the higher turnover rate of one-day players. Kerry Packer described his involvement in World Series Cricket as "half-philanthropic."

I wish I was around to see all of this unfold. It's looked like a very interesting idea. I was aware of the World Series but not all the details. I'm happy about the lasting effects of the Series. I can't imagine what world I would live in if the innovations created didn't continue to this day. I would question if I would retain a strong interest in the sport if it wasn't continued.