Cricket to us was more than play, it was a worship in the summer sun
~ Edmund Blunden.
Yours truly is among the multitudes who unabashedly swear by this dictum. Since my abilities on the cricket field barely took me into my school team, I dreamt of morphing into an expert. This secret desire got a shot in the arm as my reputation as the ultimate cricket analyst and pundit next door grew among my contemporaries.
In later years too, my reputation for punditry remained untarnished. In the words of my son, I "...watched the game obsessively, followed the scores, tallied up the results, identified patterns and critiqued the style of the players."
In 1983, there were no TV sets; only the ubiquitous transistor radio. Constrained by a busy job and the time zone, I could not switch on the radio to listen to the running commentary of the '83 World Cup final between India and the West Indies.
In reality, the reason was neither of the above. Like the millions of Indian cricket fans, the board officials and members of the team, I did not give a ghost of a chance to the Indian team led by Kapil Dev, even to win the initial rounds, let alone the World Cup.
But the mauling that Zimbabwe received at the hands of Kapil, the batter, who scored 175 at Tunbridge Wells, taking India to a grand victory changed everything. It was virtually the resurrection of Indian cricket! Team India went on to beat Australia and England en route to the final against the reigning Champions, the West Indies.
Even this trailblazing route to the finals did not convince the Indian fans including me, who firmly believed that West Indies were indeed unbeatable. This was not without basis. The then West Indian team boasted of the most fearsome pace quartet. It had an equally formidable batting lineup. The Indian team was unable to crack the code in limited over matches.
There were many heroes in the World Cup finals. The audacious Srikant scored 38 runs in his trademark style with Mohinder and Sandeep making useful contributions with the bat. The West Indies could not overhaul the modest score of 183 and were shot out for a paltry 140, Madanlal and Mohinder bagging three wickets apiece with Sandhu chipping in with two. The epic catch by Kapil Dev to dismiss the batting genius Vivian Richards got etched in our minds for keeps. It was sheer feline grace!
After a good 38 years of the World Cup, the film '83' brought back all those memories and plenty of tears. What's more, the film generated a new interest in the family who were impervious to the cricket contagion so far! They often draw my attention to YouTube clippings of interviews of the world cup heroes.
It was Sir Donald Bradman who said, "If it's difficult, I will do it now. If it's impossible, I will do it presently." Kapil's Devils had done precisely that!
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