Codrington the Toronto plumber pulls the plug on Bangladesh

Canada 180 Bangladesh 120 Canada win by 60 runs

Canada, represented by a motley assembly of amateur weekend players originally from various points of the Commonwealth, created the first major upset of the World Cup last night by defeating a woeful Bangladesh by 60 runs.

Competing in the World Cup for the first time since their brief, initial appearance in 1979, a Canada defeat seemed inevitable when they could only raise 180 all out off the first ball of the last over, batting in the heat of the day. But the team that the Madras-born, Barbados-raised, Toronto-based captain, Joe Harris, called "the only truly world team in the World Cup" maintained pressure on the spiritless Bangladeshis from the start.

They completed a famous triumph when Austin Codrington, a tall, rangy, 27-year-old Jamaica-born plumber from Toronto, took his fifth wicket, for 27, as the left-hander Mohammed Raffique skied a catch to midwicket as Bangladesh crumbled for 120 in 28.1 overs.

Harris, a qualified engineer who played a few matches for Barbados before emigrating in 1992, used only four bowlers on a pitch freshened under the floodlights. Codrington was well supported by Davis Joseph, another tall, slim fast bowler who learned his cricket in Grenada, and Ravi Thuraisingam, a roly-poly Sri Lankan medium-pacer.

John Davison, one of only two team members born in Canada but an Australian national with years of experience for Victoria and South Australia in state cricket, claimed two wickets with his off-spin.

As Davison snared the final catch, his team-mates could not contain their joy. They whooped and danced, mostly with distinctly Caribbean movements, and jigged a lap of honour with their adopted flag to the cheers of a crowd estimated at 10,000.