The Match that None Remembers

Prabuddha Neogi

Talk about the 1983 cricket world cup and a train of nostalgia flood the Indian fan’s mind. Emotions are mostly centred round the final against the mighty West Indies. Kapil Dev’s brilliant backward running catch to dismiss West Indies captain Viv Richards, Balwinder Singh Sandhu’s modest in-swinger crashing on to a dumbfounded Gordon Greenidge’s stumps, Sandip Patil’s quickfire 27 off 29 balls, and Mohinder Amarnath sprinting towards the dressing room after the victory to avoid being mobbed, are incidents that seemed happen yesterday.

The 1983 Indian world cup squad

While the match is perpetually etched in our memories, most of us have forgotten that India defeated the West Indies, not once, but twice in the 1983 world cup. The 23 June final was the second time. India beat the islanders in its very first match. It was the fourth game in the tournament, played at Manchester on 9 and 10 June, and was also perhaps the first instance where a one day international was spread over two days.

Rain and poor light delayed the start and West Indies, winning the toss, put India to bat to make full use of the damp conditions. Pace spearheads Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding, dismissed openers Krishnamachari Srikkanth and Sunil Gavaskar rather cheaply for 19 and 14 respectively. Amarnath and Patil then steadied the innings, before Yashpal Sharma contributed with his match winning 89 off 120 balls. Roger Binny and Madan Lal also put in with some valuable runs. India finished with 262/8 in its quota of 60 overs, a score considered pretty healthy in those days.

West Indies, in reply, ended the day at 67/2 having lost the wickets of Greenidge and Desmond Haynes. Richards and Faoud Bacchus were not out on 12 and 3 respectively in 22 overs. They resumed batting next day and all their top order batsmen put up decent runs. Even though they kept losing wickets at regular intervals, the runs kept on coming till Binny caught Jeff Dujon off Sandhu with the score reading 107/5. West Indies lost the next four wickets for 50 runs with Larry Gomes, Marshall and Holding failing to reach double figures. Only Joel Garner managed to put up some resistance scoring 37 from 29 balls. In fact, his 71-run last wicket stand with Roberts was beginning to cause headaches in the Indian camp. But it was all over when Ravi Shastri, dismissed Garner, and pocketed his third wicket from the game. West Indies were all out for 228 in 54.1 overs and India won by a comfortable 34 runs.

It was only India’s second victory in all the world cups it played so far. But more importantly it was West Indies’ first ever world cup defeat. Every cricket analyst dubbed the result as a shock defeat for the defending champions, rather than a worthy Indian success. None could possibly foresee what was about to happen 15 days later at Lords. But India making the calypso masters bite the dust, was the first tell-tale signs of the arrival of a new world beater.

The match, surprisingly, has disappeared from larger collective memory. That it was not telecast live, could be a reason. There are no photographs of it either. No cricket enthusiast talks about it and the match remains confined only to record books. Even none of  Kapil’s Devils—as the 1983 Indian world cup team was fondly called—seems to recall the win which laid the foundation for greater glory.