Kolkata: On this day way back in 1983 India created history when they were crowned as the World Champions of Cricket after they defeated the mighty West Indies in the finals at Lords. Here’s a throwback and memories of the tournament by the players of the past. This victory saw Indian being no longer minnows as they reached the finals again in 2003 and then ultimately won in 2011 as the 83 World Cup brought a revolution in Indian Cricket.
A lot had changed in cricket during the recent times and a major cause for bringing about the change was the 83 World Cup finals. Here are the views of the past greats.
In an interview with www.xtratime.in the greats of the past shared their memories.
Mohinder Amarnath
Before the match I remembered the famous dialogue of SHOLEY said by Gabbar Singh ‘Joh daar gaya samjho maar gaya’ (One who is afraid is dead). I was mumbling this dialogue to myself throughout the match and that kept my focus in the game.
Although we scored 183, we were not under pressure as we had nothing to lose as we were considered to be minnows at that time. On the other hand the West Indies were back to back World Cup Champions and could have scored a hat trick of World Cup wins in 1983 so naturally the pressure was on them. We had defeated them once in the group stages and that acted as a confidence booster.
In that game Krishnamachari Srikkanth was the highest run getter with 38 runs of 57 balls and I scored 26 runs. It was extremely difficult to face the four furious pacers Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall and Andy Roberts who used bowl 48 overs in the scheduled 60 overs so we wanted to face them calmly. Though we couldn’t score big but staying in the crease for a long time helped us in the second half.
Winning the 1983 World Cup can be said as the new-era or the Renaissance of Indian cricket and that not only brought change in the mentality of the players but also changed the financial condition of the players. The value of Indian cricket increased by leaps and bounds after that. We won the Benson and Hedges Cup in Australia in 1985 and then the next World Cup in 1987 was held in our country. Indian cricket was made proud by the crickets and not by the officials.
Syed Kirmani
We won because of Kapil Dev as some of his words inspired us a lot. After the end of our innings during the break he told us that being seniors to him we all needed to understand our responsibilities. He wanted the rest of the ten players to guide him. As we were without any coach he suggested that we become coaches of one another so that we can easily pound on our opposition.
In my opinion the turning point of the tournament would be winning the group stage match against Zimbabwe. During those times each team played twice with one another in the group legs. We defeated West Indies once and then lost against them and against Australia so winning the Zimbabwe match became very vital for us. BBC held a strike at that day and as both the nations didn’t have that much craze in cricket so the match was not broadcasted worldwide. We scored 266/8 in which Kapil scored 175 runs not out in only 138 runs consisting of 16 fours and 6 over boundaries. In this do-and-die encounter I remember while eating the breakfast the scoreboard read 17-5. After that when the score was 140/8 I came to the crease, and Kapil told me that we need to stay till the last over. All though I had a minimal contribution of just 24 runs, Kapil’s contribution was brilliant as at that time, scoring 175 runs was a huge task. This match made all the difference as Zimbabwe was all out on 235.
Madan Lal
For me taking the wicket of Viv Richards was the most memorable incident of the match. I took three wickets in the finals in form of Viv Richards, Desmund Haynes and Larry Gomes. When I started bowling from the Nursery end from the first over Richards were looking destructive as he hit three boundaries in my first over. After that I bowled 8 overs. In the 7th over of my first spell Kapil wanted to rest me but I insisted on bowling another over and then the historic incident occurred. While attempting a pull shot Richard was caught by Kapil and that to me was the turning point of the game.
I recount another incident, when Viv was batting the wives of the Indian players left the stadium as they didn’t wish to see the match. However after Viv was dismissed there was certain excitement in the game but due to sudden appearance of many Indian fans, our wives couldn’t enter the stadium.
Roger Binny
Scrapping the wicket of Clive Lloyd after Kapil took his catch in the cover position on my delivery is the most memorable incident for me. Winning the finals was great but winning the semi finals against England was equally important. The mighty England had a strong middle order in form of David gower, Iam Botham, Allan Lamb and Mike Gatting and restricting them to a mere score of 213 was a tough job and then strong batting performances from our batsmen saw us in to the finals.
A major reason for our success was that we had many all rounder’s that could score down the order. Another point regarding the victory was that not many had enough confidence on our possibility of winning the finals.
Balwinder Singh Sandhu
Everyone has asked me about the special delivery but not many know the fact that I had bowled him with the similar delivery twice before in the same year, once in the Trinidad test and the other during the World Cup group stage. So in the finals I was winning the mental battle.
Greenidge was considered to be one of the best batsmen of that time. When he was at the non-striker end I targeted his partner Desmund Haynes. When he came for the strike he expected the same but I bowled him the banana in swinger.
I was often made fun for being the most religious player of the team. When West Indies were 9 wickets down I kept on praying to God that if we win I would give a treat at the gurudwara.
After we won the game people crowded us but I was lucky enough to pick up a stump.
Kapil Dev was instrumental for winning the match. He told us during the break that they need to score 184 runs to win while we need just 10 good balls to win. If we perform well and then lose the match then we would not have any regret. But it is more important to give our best first.