Cricket World Cup Trivia
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60 free Cricket World Cup trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup has been played thirteen times since England hosted the first Prudential Cup in 1975, and this quiz walks through all of them. It covers the West Indies' back-to-back wins under Clive Lloyd, India's 66-1 upset at Lord's in 1983, Pakistan's 1992 triumph at the MCG, Sri Lanka's chase in Lahore, Australia's three titles in a row under Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting, Dhoni's six at the Wankhede, the tied 2019 final settled on boundaries, and Travis Head's century in Ahmedabad. There are questions on the trophy itself, on the odd formats the tournament has tried (Super Sixes, Super Eights, the 1992 rain rule), on the associate nations who upset the big teams, and on the record holders: Sachin Tendulkar's 2,278 runs, Glenn McGrath's 71 wickets, Martin Guptill's 237 not out, Rohit Sharma's seven centuries and Virat Kohli's 765 runs in a single tournament. If you want the wider sport, our general cricket quiz covers Tests, the laws and the T20 game. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who follows the tournament, a third are medium and the rest are for people who remember who was player of the match in each final. Every answer is checked against the tournament and final reference pages, and each question carries its source.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which ground hosted the first three World Cup finals?
Lord's
Lord's staged the 1975, 1979 and 1983 finals and later the 1999 and 2019 finals, five in all, more than any other ground.
Q 02The first three World Cups were officially known by the name of which sponsor?
Prudential
Prudential, the insurer, gave the tournament its first name, the Prudential Cup; the 1987 edition was officially the Reliance Cup.
Q 03Which opener batted through 60 overs for an unbeaten 36 against England in 1975?
Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Gavaskar faced 174 balls for his 36 while chasing 335, and his team finished about 200 runs short.
Q 04Which composite team joined the six Test nations and Sri Lanka in the eight-team 1975 tournament?
East Africa
East Africa went in as 1,500-1 outsiders and lost all three of its matches, its only World Cup appearance.
Q 05Which bowler took five wickets as England lost eight for 11 in the 1979 World Cup final?
Joel Garner
Joel Garner's burst bowled England out for 194 in 51 overs, and the holders won by 92 runs to keep the title.
Q 06Which captain scored a century off 82 balls in the 1975 final?
Clive Lloyd
Clive Lloyd was dropped on 26 and went on to make 102, sharing a 149-run stand with Rohan Kanhai in the veteran's last international.
Q 07Which Australian left-arm seamer took 5/48 in the 1975 World Cup final, following six wickets in the semi-final?
Gary Gilmour
Gary Gilmour's five wickets still couldn't stop Australia losing the final by 17 runs.
Q 08Which opener was the first batsman dismissed hit-wicket in an ODI, in the 1975 final?
Roy Fredericks
Roy Fredericks hooked a Dennis Lillee bouncer for six but lost his balance and knocked the bails off.
Q 09Who scored 138 in the 1979 final and was named man of the match?
Viv Richards
Viv Richards added 139 with Collis King, who hit 86 off 66 balls after the holders had slipped to 99/4.
Q 10Who captained India, rank outsiders, to the 1983 World Cup title?
Kapil Dev
Kapil Dev's India had won just one match across the two previous World Cups, yet beat the two-time champions in the final.
Q 11Who was man of the match in the 1983 final for 26 runs and three wickets?
Mohinder Amarnath
Mohinder Amarnath was also man of the match in the semi-final, and his 3/12 helped bowl out the two-time champions for 140.
Q 12Which team did India beat in 1983 after slumping to 17/5, rescued by their captain's 175 not out?
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe, who had already stunned Australia in that tournament, lost by 31 runs as India recovered to 266/8.
Q 13Which Indian seamer took the first hat-trick in World Cup history, against New Zealand in 1987?
Chetan Sharma
Chetan Sharma clean bowled Ken Rutherford, Ian Smith and Ewen Chatfield with consecutive balls, also India's first ODI hat-trick.
Q 21Which Sri Lankan opener, whose early-overs hitting transformed ODI batting, was named player of the 1996 World Cup?
Sanath Jayasuriya
Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana lofted the new ball over the infield, the opening tactic that became standard in one-day cricket.
Q 22In which city was the 1996 final played, the first World Cup final won by the chasing side?
Lahore
In Lahore, Sri Lanka beat Australia, the side that had forfeited their Colombo group match over security fears.
Q 23Who scored 107 not out and took three wickets to be man of the match in the 1996 final?
Aravinda de Silva
Aravinda de Silva took 3/42 and then made 107 not out as Sri Lanka won by seven wickets with 22 balls to spare.
Q 14Which Australian made 75 to be man of the match in the 1987 final?
David Boon
David Boon's 75 anchored Australia's 253/5, and they beat England by seven runs to win their first World Cup.
Q 15Which England captain fell to a reverse sweep off Allan Border in the 1987 final?
Mike Gatting
Mike Gatting, on 41, was caught by wicketkeeper Greg Dyer off the occasional left-arm spin of the opposing captain.
Q 16Whose breakaway series gave cricket the coloured kit and floodlights of the 1992 World Cup?
Kerry Packer
Kerry Packer set up World Series Cricket to win TV rights for his Nine Network, and top players from several countries joined him.
Q 17Which England captain hit 17 sixes in one innings against Afghanistan at the 2019 World Cup?
Eoin Morgan
Eoin Morgan's 17 sixes set a new ODI record in an innings of 148 off 71 balls at Old Trafford.
Q 18Who captained Pakistan to the 1992 title at the MCG?
Imran Khan
Imran Khan took the final wicket with his last ball in international cricket, and later served as Pakistan's prime minister.
Q 19Who was man of the match in the 1992 final for 3/49 and 33 off 18 balls?
Wasim Akram
Wasim Akram bowled Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis with successive balls, breaking England's resistance at the MCG.
Q 20Which New Zealand captain opened the bowling with spinner Dipak Patel in 1992?
Martin Crowe
Crowe's tactics took New Zealand to the semi-final, where an injury kept him off the field during Pakistan's chase.
Q 24Besides England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, which country staged a match at the 1999 World Cup?
Netherlands
The Netherlands hosted one match, at Amstelveen, even though the Dutch team had failed to qualify for the tournament.
Q 25Which South African was run out to tie the 1999 semi-final after a mix-up with Lance Klusener?
Allan Donald
Allan Donald, who had dropped his bat, was run out by yards, and Australia went through having beaten South Africa earlier in the tournament.
Q 26Who took four wickets to be man of the match in the 1999 final?
Shane Warne
Shane Warne took 4/33 as Pakistan were bowled out for 132, and Australia won by eight wickets.
Q 27The permanent ICC World Cup trophy, introduced in 1999, was made in London by which firm?
Garrard & Co
Garrard & Co's craftsmen took two months to make it, with three silver columns shaped as stumps and bails holding a golden globe.
Q 28The World Cup trophy's golden ball has its seam tilted to represent what?
The Earth's axis
The Earth's axis inspired the tilt, and the three silver columns holding up the ball stand for batting, bowling and fielding.
Q 29Which associate nation reached the semi-finals in 2003, the best result ever by a non-Test team?
Kenya
New Zealand's refusal to travel to Nairobi handed Kenya a forfeit that helped them through.
Q 30At which South African ground did Australia make 359/2, the highest total in a World Cup final, in 2003?
Wanderers Stadium
The Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg crowned an Australian side that won all 11 of its matches at the tournament.