It has been exactly 25 years, since June 18, 1983, the day on which Kapil Dev played one of the greatest innings in cricket, and certainly the most influential innings in the history of the sport.  Consider the hoopla and never ending criticism if this was an innings by an Englishman or an Australian and Doordarshan failed to record it. 

Anyway the mere description of the innings brings goose bumps to all Indians. Consider the odds. 9/4 when he came in, loses Yashpal Sharma to be faced with 17/5.

He strings together a couple of 50 partnerships with Roger Binny(22) & Madan Lal(17) and in walks the redoubtable Syed Kirmani as number 10. Then he scores nearly a hundred by himself in the ninth wicket partnership of 126! We can only speculate, but I'll take Kiri's word(in other reports) when he says it was the cleanest hitting he saw. We have to agree: 175 off 138 with 16 fours and 6 sixes was Jesoppian, more so considering he was playing with the tail and was captain. Granted this was against the minnows, Zimbabwe, but Zimbabwe had sprung an early upset of the disappointing Australians and India could well have lost momentum, since they ended only 2 wins more than the Aussies in the final table and yet to play the Aussies once more.

The odds of India winning the cup before the tourney was officially 66-1, a very accurate picture of the way the world viewed India as a cricketing nation. We were the inept cousins of the fiery Pakistani neighbours with their blistering pacemen and English bred players.

But India began surprisingly well, upsetting the favored West Indians in the opening game, but could win only one game against Zimbabwe peppered by heavy losses to Australia and the West Indies. Indian morale was low with semi-final chances looking slim. Then June 18th happened. And the rest as they say is history. I will not forget the finals day of June 25th either, since it was a microcosm of the whole event for India: prohibitive underdogs, make a modest total of 183, the greatest player of the day was sauntering towards an easy win when the captain plucks a great two handed running catch off a mishit and then the tide turns.

The BCCI is being forced to celebrate the 25th anniversary and has to invite Kapil, inspite of spite. Pawar makes a statement "we'll invite Kapil Dev since he was the captain" which makes me nauseous as he clearly implies "we'll invite Kapil Dev only because he was captain". What a bunch of losers running cricket here. The PCA is trying to stamp out any visible signs of Kapil Dev and the BCCI is making pompous little statements. I hope their arrogance is well punished elsewhere, but let us Indian Cricket Fans, celebrate this epochal event(that literally put India on the cricketing map: the Reliance World Cup of 1987 doesn't happen here if India doesn't win the 1983 Cup; it set the tone for India as a cricketing power). The joie de vivre of its indomitable skipper and the spirit he imbued in that team which made bits & pieces cricketers such as Madan Lal, Roger Binny, Sandeep Patil, Jimmy Amarnath, Balwinder Sandhu, Krish Srikkanth all step up at the right moments.

Thanks boys! We'll never forget you!

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