India won the World Championship of Cricket in 1985. The year also was eventful for me. I entered into college leaving behind uniforms and the school bags. The Indian victory came just before I sat down to write the class 10 examinations.
With no television, one had to depend on newspapers and occasionally on the radio. In the recent weeks, I saw all the action on television, courtesy, ESPN and Star Sports. Behind the win, the Indians did the ‘basics’ right.
Srikkanth played shots all over the ground and he was not afraid to take to the air, something that coaches at the junior level despise of. Ravi Shastri batted and bowled like a true champion of champions. Kapil Dev bowled well and played an important knock like the one against New Zealand. Sunil Gavaskar and Azharuddin batted well.
All the bowlers had their moments and were ably supported by the fielders. The fielders covered the large grounds in Australia well and took most of the catches. Basically, everyone contributed his might. The team did not rely on an individual and that really made all the difference.
This win and the victory in the World Cup in 1983 was the reason why I follow cricket till today.
2 comments:
drsundeep:
thanks. I was not as lucky as you were to see the semifinals and the finals live on the tv. I saw the matches on espnstar recently.
Hi!
I also would've missed the semis and the finals if my dad wouldn't have been a strict disciplinarian (army man after all!) to wake me up every day at 5 am! After waking me up he used to go and sleep himself while I used to sit infront of the TV and watch all the action till everyone in the household woke up by 7am, after which I used to ask "permission" from dad to watch the match as I had already "put in" 2 hours of study! Ah, those were the days!
The summer of '85 was also special for another reason as immediately after the mini WC we also won the Rothmans cup in Sharjah beating pakistan again in the finals. The dream was to end finally in '86 when Miandad hit the (in)famous six of the last ball off Chetan Sharma.
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