Yellow-ball Supertests, Lillee v Richards, and that man Asif Mujtaba
This week, we're looking back at the World Series in all its avatars
Packer's marketing mantra was to package cricket as entertainment. Like every TV show in the 1970s, World Series Cricket had an opening theme. In the second season, the promotional song, "C'mon Aussie C'mon", went on to top the Australian music charts. While this song accompanied broadcasts of subsequent WSC games and Test matches in coming years, the intro for Channel 9's cricket broadcasts, a tune originally known as "New Horizons", composed by Brian Bennett, went through several iterations.
If you're looking for the origins of World Series Cricket, go all the way back to December 2, 1977 when the revolution began with the first Supertest. Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Wayne Daniel blew away the WSC Australians, and the West Indians won by three wickets inside three days. Here, meanwhile, you can watch some classic Barry Richards pulls and drives from the 1978-79 SuperTest final, a day-night game with coloured clothing and yellow balls.
Much of the world has watched Trevor Chappell rolling the ball underarm towards Brian McKechnie with New Zealand needing six to tie off the delivery, but check out the build-up and reactions. Greg Chappell shows him how to do it, Rod Marsh shakes his head in disbelief, McKechnie throws away his bat, and New Zealand captain Geoff Howarth confronts the umpires. Richie Benaud sums it up, calling it "one of the worst things" he has ever seen.
From the sublime to the slapstick, there were so many different types of finishes in the World Series tournaments in the 1990s. The decade began with New Zealand's Chris Pringle keeping Bruce Reid on strike throughout the final over, defending two runs. He was lucky to get away with a leg-side delivery that could, and maybe should, have been called a wide, but Pringle forced several swings-and-misses before Reid was run out attempting a bye off the last ball.
Mohammad Isam is ESPNcricinfo's Bangladesh correspondent. @isam84