First World Cup Of India – I remember that day only once. A Sony Trinitron color TV set in a solid wooden case, my father’s walrus-moustached friend Mukulesh in a bush dress, his wife Shobha in a sari, our new house in Bombay still smelling of fresh paint, my mosaic-tiled bedroom, the sound of cricket commentary coming from the kitchen. the smell of roasted cumin, the clinking of glasses, my parents screaming with joy, and the firecrackers that Sunday evening.
Marcel Proust said, “Remembering the past is not necessarily remembering things as they were.” Did I remember the day or did I create those memories through different accounts? I’m not sure, but my parents can confirm many details. I was four years old. It is June 25, 1983 – the day India won the World Cup at Lord’s.
First World Cup Of India
It was a day that changed Indian cricket, a day that changed India. This changed Sachin Tendulkar. “I took my parents’ permission and celebrated until late at night,” he says. “I was inspired to play the [hard] ball game in the season after the 1983 World Cup win. If it hadn’t happened, everything could have been different for me.”
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I heard about that day for years afterwards. Viv Richards going berserk, Kapil Dev running to catch him, Jimmy Amarnath’s man-of-the-match performance and thousands of Indians storming the stadium – these vignettes have been told over and over and embellished with every replay. It’s been years since I watched a rerun of Kapil’s catch, but I could have sworn I was watching it on loop. No father in the 1980s ever tired of talking to his children about that magical, uplifting victory. India Today, India’s leading newspaper at the time, carried its cover story: “Lord’s Miracles: Indian Cricket’s Finest Hour”.
And what a treat it was. The team can only pull off “a surprise or two”, beating odds of 50-1 to rule the house of cricket, as captain Kapil himself put it. Cricket was not a game but a metaphor for life for a poverty-stricken nation recovering from the wounds of Emergency and Nehruvian socialism. Nowhere was this metaphor more apparent than in India’s conflicted relationship with Lord on the basis of race, color, class, and colonialism. Lord’s was seen as the pinnacle of imperialism – a private gentlemen’s club with an emphasis on order and rules and a white, privileged, male outlook on life. Winning the World Cup at Lord’s was a triumph of everything he stood for.
Kapil Dev catches Viv Richards in the final of the 1983 Cricket World Cup and Indian fans celebrate. Photo: Colorsport/Rex
This tension was evident from the very beginning: when India had to play the first Test against England in India. Originally planned for 1930–31, the series coincided with the beginning of the Civil Disobedience movement in India, including the Salt Satyagraha. When Mahatma Gandhi began a walk from the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to Dundee to protest the draconian British salt laws – thus “shaking the foundations of the British Empire” as he said – there was a protest by the English cricket team in India. . you will travel to the country. A tour should have been called.
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The two teams finally met two years later with the All India team – as it was then known – traveling to England to play one Test, Lord’s and a few county games. “While Gandhi languishes in jail, the Indian cricket team to tour England is being selected,” writes Ramachandra Guha in the Foreign Field Corner. “Interestingly, two Indians showed up for their constituencies against the tourists. Dulepsinhji played for Sussex and Pataudi Nawab for Worcestershire. Both have opted out of appearing in All India colors in the hope of being selected for England’s winter tour of Australia. Although Dulep dropped out due to illness, both were selected. Such deviations were possible when India was still ruled by the British. Interestingly, he was not asked to play for England in the only Test in 1932 against India.
As anti-British sentiment continued to rage in India, Indian and British teams appeared before King George V at the Palace of Lords. Jahangir Khan – who appeared in the 1932 Lord’s Test – said the Indians were “a bit nervous because they had never played a Test match and there was a lot of shouting”. England won by 158 runs, but the Indians did not cause panic with three quick wickets on a hot first day pitch. England wicketkeeper Les Ames said India’s bowling was up to standard but not their batting. Had “two very good Indians” – Dulepsinhji and the Nawab of Pataudi – been in the side, “the match could have been a different story”.
Interestingly, Duleep and Nawab, despite being fit, were not selected until three decades earlier, when the MCC decided not to include Duleep’s brother Ranjitsinhji in the 1895–96 Test against Australia at Lord’s. Lord Harris, President of the MCC, believed that only “native” cricketers should be selected. “It was hypocrisy or outright racism, depending on how you look at it,” Guha writes. “Because Harris himself was born in the West Indies.”
But then Ranji was selected for the Test at Old Trafford because the Lancashire committee wanted him to play (in those days the host county or the MCC at Lord’s chose the England team). So, at the heart of India’s conflicted relationship with Lord is the colonial baggage carried by Indians, which has often led to a reverence for the traditions of the land and all that: a desperation to see their names on the honor roll, a fear of it. they sought to vindicate the Long House and, in some cases, the Empire, with a vengeance.
Which Year India Won First World Cup
For Jack Bannister’s Innings of My Life, Mohammad Azharuddin scored his century in the 1990 Lord’s Test, famous for Graham Gooch’s 333 after Azhar won the toss and beat England. Hyderabad and he said he wanted me to reach a century in this beautiful place. He was always interested in my cricket but only dreamed of me scoring one at Lord’s.”
This sentiment is repeated over and over again. Whether it’s Tendulkar or Rahul Dravid, it’s common to hear Indian cricketers talk quietly about how important it is to put on a show there. “When I first came here as a youngster, I never understood the importance of such statistics,” Dravid said after his century at Lord’s in 2011, six months before his retirement. “But losing my first face at Lord’s all those years ago has stayed with me a little.”
Indian fans arrive at the stadium to celebrate their victory over West Indies in the 1983 Cricket World Cup final. Photo: Adrian Murrell/Getty Images
After the collective disappointment at Lord’s, victory in the 1983 World Cup opened the floodgates. After 10 Tests at Lord’s – eight defeats and two draws – India won in 1986, only the second time in 33 Tests in England. Off the field, too, India began to pull their weight in the next World Cup with Pakistan in 1987, taking the final out of Lord’s.
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Ironically, it was 19 years after the 1983 final before India played another limited-overs match at this venue. After the league during the 2002 Natwest series – a game India won comprehensively – the final was played against England at Lord’s. After 326, India looked 146 for five, Virender Sehwag, Ganguly, Dravid and Tendulkar all returned to the dressing room. But 20-year-old Yuvraj Singh and 21-year-old Mohammad Kaif took them home with two balls to spare. India no longer has a decade-long history of foreign defeats and nine consecutive final defeats in one day.
In the balcony at Lord’s, Ganguly took off his shirt and went into a manic frenzy as India’s own HQ replicated Andrew Flintoff’s terror at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai five months ago. India’s attitude at Lord’s seems to have come full circle from the mistrust of 1932 to the arrogance of 2002. A Mumbai Sunday afternoon tabloid headlined: “LORDS: Mohammed pulls off miracle at Mecca of cricket”.
If India had not won that day in 1983, would they have sought to host the 1987 World Cup together? Was Tendulkar inspired to take up cricket? Would the game explode in the subcontinent? Will Jagmohan Dalmiya become ICC President? Will the epicenter of cricket shift from London to Mumbai? Not just Indian cricket, the history of cricket could indeed have been different.
A longer version of this article appeared in the sixth issue of The Nightwatchman, Wisden’s cricket quarterly. Follow The Nightwatchman on Twitter It was a never-ending story
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