It’s tempting to say that on June 25, 1983, cricket was born in India. But that will not be true. What happened that day was much simpler—cricket replaced hockey as the national sport. It’s silly to use the word ‘unofficial’ here because the ‘official’ in matters concerning rail accident death toll and other frequent events in Indian society, has anyways only stood for lies. There are people who believe that India’s World Cup victory was such a powerful event that it killed Indian hockey. That’s not entirely true. Hockey killed itself beginning from early ’80s. What the 1983 victory did was herald cricket as perhaps the only area of human activity, and not just sports, where a wounded civilisation felt it could triumph over foreign lands. The memory that Indians have of that final, those images of the West Indian collapse and Kapil holding the cup, can only be matched by the native retention of Sholay. It was all very unreal. India in the finals itself was a shock to some of the Commonwealth and beyond. After India batted first, it all seemed over. 183 is a minuscule portion of a meal if the men at the table are called Greenidge, Haynes, Richards and Lloyd. It’s almost disrespectful to ask them go chase something like that.
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Understandably, after their batting, the mood in the Indian dressing room was funereal in decibel terms. But Kapil Dev strode across like a benign commander saying that if they had worked so hard to make it thus far, they might as well go down fighting. When Greenidge got out to a magical off-cutter from Sandhu, there was good news and bad news. Good news, of course, was that West Indies was one down. Viv Richards was the bad news. Richards sent Kapil, Sandhu and Madan Lal to some dismissive boundaries. Even when Haynes went, Richards looked like he had to finish the practice session fast and go elsewhere. But then he mishit a ball that flew over Kapil’s head. The captain raced back, never losing sight of the ball. When he caught it, suddenly the match had become an even contest. After Gomes left, Gavaskar asked Binny to pitch the ball up to Lloyd who had earlier pulled a muscle. The West Indian captain fell to the bait. He scooped up a catch to Kapil. The game slowly proceeded towards a dramatic Indian victory. That the West Indians will soon come to India and put us in our place is a story that we will say gladly, is beyond the scope of this book.
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The odds against India winning the cup before the tournament started was 1 to 66. England’s Dickie Bird officiated in his third successive finals—a record which was later equalled by Windies’ Steve Bucknor.
This That
- India denied the Windies a third consecutive title, and no one has since broken the jinx
- The odds against India winning the cup before the tournament started was 1 to 66
