June 25, 1983, the red-letter day of Indian Cricket, saw the Great Kapil Dev proudly lifting the World Cup. Kapil’s devils had defeated indomitable West Indies team in the finals by 43 runs to win the Prudential World Cup. It has been 25 years since and we still relive that moment.
Confidence Boosting Start
India defeated West Indies in the first league match at Manchester and it was a great morale boosting win for India’s campaign in that World Cup. Earlier India had defeated them at Berbice in Caribbean islands in the bilateral one-day series. Any team winning against West Indies in those days is a great achievement.
The Greatest One-day Innings
Both Australia and India were tied at 2 wins and 2 losses each after playing 4 matches each. In a damp pitch at Tunbridge Wells, India elected to bat against Zimbabwe. Though Zimbabwe was making its debut in that World Cup they had decent seam attack to exploit English conditions. Soon India was down with 5 wickets with only 17 runs on the board. In walked Kapil Dev without knowing that his innings would not only change the course of the match or course of the tournament but course of the Cricketing history. Am I overreacting in my praise for Kapil? No. That innings put India into the semi-finals and India went on to win the World Cup. India’s victory generated huge viewership among India television audience. Now India is Cricket’s financial power house. Lalit Modi and his ilk should be grateful to Kapil.
The most unfortunate thing is no one was able to watch that innings on television because of the strike by the broadcasters (BBC) on that day. Does anyone have the video clippings of that famous knock of 175?
Giant Killing Act by All-rounders
India squad was packed with many all-rounders. Most of them are half all-rounders with Kapil being the genuine all-rounder and pace bowler as well. Roger Binny, Madan Lal, Mohinder Amarnath are the other pace bowling all-rounders. They also had Balwinder Singh Sandhu as specialist pace bowler, who produced the famous inswinger to get out Gordon Greenidge in the finals. Roger Binny was the leading wicket-taker in the tournament with 18 wickets. Mohinder Amarnath was man-of-the match in both semi-finals and finals for his sterling all-round performances.
As a proud Indian, I salute Kapil and his devils on the 25th year of India’s only one-day World Cup triumph. But I want these kind of moments to occur regularly in Indian Cricket.
Indian Squad
Kapil Dev
Sunil Gavaskar
Krish Srikkanth
Mohinder Amarnath
Yasphal Sharma
Sandeep Patel
Roger Binny
Madan Lal
Kirti Azad
Syed Kirmani
Balwinder Singh Sandhu
Ravi Shastri
Dilip Vengsarkar
Sunil Valson
Team Manager: P. R. Man Singh
Confidence Boosting Start
India defeated West Indies in the first league match at Manchester and it was a great morale boosting win for India’s campaign in that World Cup. Earlier India had defeated them at Berbice in Caribbean islands in the bilateral one-day series. Any team winning against West Indies in those days is a great achievement.
The Greatest One-day Innings
Both Australia and India were tied at 2 wins and 2 losses each after playing 4 matches each. In a damp pitch at Tunbridge Wells, India elected to bat against Zimbabwe. Though Zimbabwe was making its debut in that World Cup they had decent seam attack to exploit English conditions. Soon India was down with 5 wickets with only 17 runs on the board. In walked Kapil Dev without knowing that his innings would not only change the course of the match or course of the tournament but course of the Cricketing history. Am I overreacting in my praise for Kapil? No. That innings put India into the semi-finals and India went on to win the World Cup. India’s victory generated huge viewership among India television audience. Now India is Cricket’s financial power house. Lalit Modi and his ilk should be grateful to Kapil.
The most unfortunate thing is no one was able to watch that innings on television because of the strike by the broadcasters (BBC) on that day. Does anyone have the video clippings of that famous knock of 175?
Giant Killing Act by All-rounders
India squad was packed with many all-rounders. Most of them are half all-rounders with Kapil being the genuine all-rounder and pace bowler as well. Roger Binny, Madan Lal, Mohinder Amarnath are the other pace bowling all-rounders. They also had Balwinder Singh Sandhu as specialist pace bowler, who produced the famous inswinger to get out Gordon Greenidge in the finals. Roger Binny was the leading wicket-taker in the tournament with 18 wickets. Mohinder Amarnath was man-of-the match in both semi-finals and finals for his sterling all-round performances.
As a proud Indian, I salute Kapil and his devils on the 25th year of India’s only one-day World Cup triumph. But I want these kind of moments to occur regularly in Indian Cricket.
Indian Squad
Kapil Dev
Sunil Gavaskar
Krish Srikkanth
Mohinder Amarnath
Yasphal Sharma
Sandeep Patel
Roger Binny
Madan Lal
Kirti Azad
Syed Kirmani
Balwinder Singh Sandhu
Ravi Shastri
Dilip Vengsarkar
Sunil Valson
Team Manager: P. R. Man Singh
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