KEY POINTS:
Looking back at cricket's first World Cup in 1975, it's easiest to see the tournament in terms of what was missing.
An injustice to great old days maybe, but a good starting point.
Coloured clothing, helmets, floodlights, South Africa, fielding restrictions, sophisticated television coverage, the 50-over standard - at that point they were all things of future world tournaments.
Eight teams readied the willow in England that year, with little idea of the cricket world that was to follow.
TV magnate Kerry Packer's cricket revolution was a couple of years away, although the wheels may have begun to spin in the impresario's mind at the time of the 1975 tournament, when test matches and stuffy administrators still ruled.
Three decades on - and on the verge of the latest World Cup in the West Indies - one-day cricket is apparently on the brink of an era involving even higher scores.
Events of the past few weeks, and even last year's Chappell-Hadlee series, suggest that a world of elevated batting heroes and even more frustrated bowlers awaits.
Yet 32 years ago, a brilliant West Indian side were well satisfied in scoring 291 from 60 overs on a batters' wicket in the first World Cup final at Lord's, and duly kept Australia at bay.
This first world tournament happened at a pivotal time for cricket,
It might best be summed up by the reaction of Clive Lloyd - the pre-eminent one-day cricketer of the time and the West Indies captain - to the way his side's victory was received.
Lloyd complained that the West Indian board ignored the team, save for a paltry fee. The winners were left bitter. The winds of change were blowing.
It is easy to look back fondly at those times of towelling hats and flimsy bats, but the cricketers themselves were becoming grumpy at their lot or at least sensed they deserved better rewards. Public support was also wavering, although some of this country's better test crowds could be found in the Hadlee-chanting late 1970s.
Packer was to see the game right with his flamboyant World Series, batting off the establishment and its legal challenges to emerge as the saviour.
The 1975 tournament was on the cusp of this overhaul, and it started at Buckingham Palace where the eight teams first assembled.
The New Zealand team was full of names that are well remembered to this day, captain Glenn Turner, Richard Hadlee (and his brothers Dayle and Barry), Geoff and Hedley Howarth, the late Ken Wadsworth, Richard Collinge, John Parker, John Morrison and so on.
Turner was the New Zealand star, the highest run scorer in the tournament, a strategist who could dictate a game from the number one spot. Despite his presence, New Zealand were never a threat.
Parker describes the tournament as "a fairly low-key organisation with very little razzmatazz".
"There were towelling hats, and you were told not to drink too much water or else you'd get the stitch.
"Training was some mis-spelled word to do with the railways. People just played a lot of cricket and you got fit through practice in the nets. When you were stiff and sore, you just bowled some more."
New Zealand were well beaten in a semifinal at the Oval by a West Indian team including greats such as Lloyd, Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge and Andy Roberts.
It was the opening game against East Africa at Edgbaston, though, that Parker recalled most clearly, for its curiosity value.
East Africa comprised players from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
New Zealand dawdled for much of their innings before bursting into the 300s, with Turner scoring 171.
"John Morrison gave it a huge block [slow batting] and we were all laughing like mad," says Parker. "They weren't very good. They had some old-looking blokes with real bowlegs.
"They blocked it out for the 60 overs, were 128 for eight, and were very pleased with themselves. I think they thought they'd got a draw."
New Zealand then faltered, beaten by England under the gaze of the New Zealand Cricket chairman Walter Hadlee, father of Richard and co.
"Barry Hadlee gave it a huge block that day - he batted for 23 overs and got 19," says Parker. "You did as much as you could to convince people to do the right thing in those days but in the end it was up to them. After all, Barry was the chairman's son, and the chairman was watching.
"Tony Greig had knocked my poles over and Walter said to me afterwards, 'Bad luck John - you getting out was a crucial point.' But Mrs Hadlee said, 'Don't worry John, it wasn't your fault."'
Another world.
Teams had managers but no coaches. Morrison recalled the New Zealand manager John Heslop falling ill for a few days.
"So he appointed me as the manager to fill in, which I don't think did a heck of a lot for the administration of the side," says Morrison.
"These were times of fantastic change for cricket, which must be hard for some people to imagine now.
"It took someone from outside the game to see its potential a few years later.
"The first World Cup was quite exciting because cricket had never had the flavour of an international tournament and no one really knew where it was all going.
"No one was getting paid really, and with New Zealand there was this enormous ongoing row [about professionalism] between Turner and Wally Hadlee, who was the stiff-upper-lip type.
"It was so ironic that along came his son Richard as a fully fledged professional. I don't think Wally knew how to handle it.
"Anyway, the first one-day game I ever played was a club game and we all thought that it was a slogathon.
"We were all out by the 17th over. It took a while to latch on to how to play it.
"And at the end of my career, having played in those boring old whites for the whole time, I suddenly found myself getting fitted out in these beige pyjamas.
"At the time of that first World Cup there were no fielding restrictions and I remember England putting everyone around the boundary one time. We'd done it a couple of times before.
"I shudder to think what we would look like in the replays compared to the modern game."
Parker runs his business from offices at Seddon Park which overlook the playing arena where New Zealand beat Australia with a stunning run chase on Sunday.
"What we've just seen has been terrific and I think we have an outside chance of winning the World Cup, given that we've put three good performances together," he said.
"I think New Zealand has gone back to good cricket strategies. They've gone back to playing good cricket shots again and that is how all the teams who have won World Cups have played.
"It did make me think back to the 1970s and more my time playing for Worcestershire, when many of the great players in the world were in county sides.
"In those days you mixed with the opposition, and in the World Cup there were a lot of county connections between the rival sides.
"We played our cricket very hard back then but we had a lot of fun."
Morrison said: "We've just seen three great games and we've been a bit starved of that at home.
"The way the crowd gets into it - if people had turned up dressed as Father Christmas or the Pope in my playing days they would have been locked up for being nuts.
"Packer and the marketing people gave [the game] a whole new culture.
"And if someone had ever asked us to chase 346 - well you could never have conceived it."
