How India conquered the cricket world in 1983

A reproduction of the late KN Prabhu’s article for World of Cricket magazine to commemorate the 40th anniversary of India’s most famous ODI cricket triumph

I did not see as much of the World Cup as I would have liked to. But what I saw of it was something to treasure through the years. For, India scored their first victory in a tournament for which there are now other bidders.

Now l feel I am entitled to sing a variation of that old West Indies calypso, Cricket, exciting cricket, at Lord's where l saw it. For, if cricket in that final was not as lovely, as some of us purists would have it, it was certainly exciting.

And yet, who among the millions of us who watched it over television or at close quarters, would have expected it so. Certainly not this writer. Agreed, the selectors had chosen a team best suited to the limited overs game, recalling K Srikkanth, Roger Binny and Kirti Azad. But the past would weigh heavily on India or so we imagined with the scars of the Pakistan and West Indies tours yet to heal.

The run-up to the tournament could not have been more discouraging, the practice games ending in defeats and hardly any performance of note. All this made the final outcome wonderous and glorious. 

In opting to watch Australia meet West Indies at Lord's instead of the Tunbridge Wells game l had all the conventional reasonable rational arguments to offer fòr my choice. The match against Zimbabwe should be a walkover. At Lord's there was a chance of seeing the fastest bowlers in the game: Thomson, Lillee and Hogg against Marshall, Holding, Roberts and Davis. It was certainly a glorious day at Lord's with Hughes, Hookes and Yallop thrilling the packed ground with stirring strokeplay. But certainly all the drama was being enacted on the little county ground at Tunbridge Wells, when with India at nine down for four against the bowling of Rawson and Curran. Kapil Dev took over to play an innings (175 not out) which Alan Gibson, of the Times, said must have made the Zimbabweans feel that they were overwhelmed by "an elemental form of nature, like someone tossed over the Victoria Falls in a barrel.”

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And so to the final. At the book-makers, India were 40 to one. There was talk of Lord's being half empty with only the usual West Indian mob and a few Indians. Happily these fears were unfounded. Indeed there was not a chick of space on the ground, with the spectators almost surging across the boundary line near the Tavern. And strangest of all there was a long queue extending down the road of august MCC members before play began.

That match has been described by my friend Frank Keating of The Guardian as An Indian epic. It certainly was such to all those of us who had seen India suffer at the hands of Pakistan and the West'lndies. Here was ven-geance indeed and it tasted sweet.

Sweet as Srikkanth twirled his bat and struck postures very like those of CK Nayudu and [Learie] Constantine in the old text books. But again these moments of glory seemed all the brief when Mohinder Amarnath was bowled by a ball of great pace from Holding and the artful Gomes removed Yashpal and Kapil. In this series Gomęs, with his innocent-looking off breaks, managed to secure some priceless wickets. Only the other day he had bowled Zaheer with one such delivery.

A total of 183 off 54.4 overs looked well within the reach of the first four West Indies batsmen. The experts in the press box expected the game to be over by tea. Even though Greenidge and Haynes were gone for fifty they believed that King Richards and Lloyd would settle it all between. them. But the sardonic imps who control this game had the last laugh. And so, too, did Madan Lal and Mohinder, who was declared the man of the match.

And yet, how that game dragged on. Every minute was felt as a heartbeat and as Marshall and Dujon held out through tea. I was reminded of Neville Cardus's superstitious triek. Whenever he wanted a wicket to fall he visited the cloakroom. With me it was the bar behind the press box for a ‘refill.’ It was indeed a master stroke that brought Mohinder back. And Mohinder responded magnificently with the ball as he has so often done with the bat to relieve us of the tension and agony.

Twice ina little over a decade, I had had the pleasure and the privilege of the tricolour surging across the greensward at the Oval (1971) and Lord's (1983).

Excerpted from Sportsweek’s World of Cricket April-June 1983

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