World Cup glory on home soil

In 2015 the ICC Cricket World Cup, the pinnacle of international one-day cricket, was jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand for the first time in 23 years.

The tournament’s 49 matches were played over 44 days by 14 teams in 14 host cities across the two countries.

However in the end there could be only two – and fittingly it was the two host nations that stepped out onto the MCG to contest the final on March 29.

The Trans Tasman clash generated unprecedented interest in Australia and overseas and, after being officially declared a sell-out in the days prior, crowd estimates were almost as frequent as the predictions about the game’s outcome!

The match itself was an anti climax, as the Aussies dismissed the Black Caps for 183 and came out convincing victors by seven wickets. Captain Michael Clarke, in his final one-day match, held the World Cup trophy aloft in front of a raucous, world record cricket crowd of 93,013