Ask any cricketer to choose India’s Best International One Day Performance (ODI), and the answers will come quickly. And it will vary. Many will signal the 1983 World Cup final, some younger ones would go for the 2013 World Cup victory, others will point to the clinical demolition of the competition at the 1985 WCC, and some will bet on that incredible day in the that India defended. 126 against Pakistan in Sharjah in 1985.
But perhaps the biggest victory of all came on this very date of the month almost 40 years ago. On March 29, 1983, India shocked the world champions, the world, and perhaps even themselves.
David and Goliath
The game was played in Berbice. India’s opponents were the mighty West Indies under Clive Lloyd, a team that was not only the World Cup starter, but was hands down the best team in ODI not just at the time, but perhaps of all time. India, on the other hand, had a very nervous ODI record: they had won just one match at the World Cup and while they had victories against England and Sri Lanka at home, the team was considered perhaps one of the worst among games. test. nations, standing above Sri Lanka which had just joined the Test cricket fold.
Lloyd’s team was considered almost unbeatable and only lost a handful of games in recent years. The batting lineup was made up of the likes of Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Vivian Richards, and of course Lloyd himself, while at the bowling front was the fierce pace and precision of Malcom Marshall, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner. and a Malcom still in maturity. Marshall.
By comparison, India only had Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev as world-class established artists. Of the famous quarter turn, only Srinivas Venkataraghavan remained. Gundappa Vishwanath’s career had recently ended and while Mohinder Amarnath had made an impressive return to the team in Pakistan, he was known to be inconsistent, as was Dilip Vengsarkar. India had some useful all-terrain players in their ranks like Ravi Shastri and Madan Lal, but said and done, the team was not on paper close to the West Indies. Things were not made easier by the fact that Kapil Dev had just taken over as team captain from Sunil Gavaskar, prompting talk of divisions and rivalries in the team. Yes, India had been competing valiantly on the tour thus far, but they were already 1-0 down in both the Test series and the ODI.
Kapil Dev had just taken over as captain of Sunil Gavaskar’s team. (File photo / ICC)
When the two teams took to the field on March 29, India was supposed to have as much chance against the West Indian giant as a snowflake to survive in an oven.
A sunny start …
Clive Lloyd won the draw and invited India to bat. India experimented with a new opening couple, Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri. No one expected the world from them, and the challenge was primarily surviving the opening burst of Michael Holding and Andy Roberts’ super-fast express delivery company. At the event, everyone was shocked when the normally reserved Gavaskar launched a fierce attack on the rhythm duo. Marshall’s presentation brought a semblance of sanity from his extreme, but the races continued to flow to the other. The man who was considered to have one of the most impervious techniques in the cricket world was suddenly going for cuts and even the odd job. Before they knew it, the West Indies were in a place they had never been against India in an ODI: on the defensive.
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Gavaskar ran to his 50s of just 52 deliveries and dominated a starting position of 93 with Shastri landing a relatively reserved 30. Shastri’s exit brought Amarnath in and he literally started running, ensuring India didn’t waste the initial momentum. Gavaskar and Amarnath’s pairing added 59 for the second wicket, before Gavaskar came within ten of being the first Indian to score a century in ODIs – running out of 90 with just 117 balls (that was incredibly fast back in the days when gorillas were allowed and field restrictions were largely non-existent).
… Crowned by Kapil
Spectators were shocked by the batter who came in to replace Gavaskar. Most expected Dilip Vengsakar to take the place of the Little Master, or perhaps even Yahspal Sharma or Ashok Malhotra if further acceleration was planned. Instead, they were allowed to see the Indian captain, Kapil Dev, walking towards the center, in a radical reorganization of the intermediate order. Four years ago, Kapil had been promoted in the order four years ago by Venkataraghavan to pursue a goal against England at the Oval in 1979, ahead of Vishwanath and Yashpal Sharma. The young off-roader had failed to upset the scorer, falling to a reckless blow. This day was going to be different.
Because, if Gavaskar had seemed unusually fast in his race accumulation, Kapil Dev took the race pace to another level. The next hour saw the Indian captain unleash the kind of assault rarely seen in a one-day match. As it rained limits, even the normally unflappable Lloyd looked a bit baffled and kept his part-time timekeepers Gomes and Richards for longer periods than usual. The Indians did not complain. By the time Richards pitched Amarnath cleanly for 30, India was 224 of 3. Amarnath had scored just 30, but had seen 131 runs added during his tenure in the area. Rarely had a second violin been played better.
A fan hugs Kapil Dev during India’s historic victory over the West Indies, Berbice, 1983. pic.twitter.com/8ywwJoFx1P
– Rameshwar Singh (@ RSingh6969a) December 16, 2020
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Meanwhile, Kapil flamed, flashed, banged and banged like there was no tomorrow. It was finally released by Andy Roberts for a staggering 72 of 38 deliveries, with seven fours and three sixes. Yashpal Sharma and Vengsarkar made sure the momentum wasn’t wasted. Even though the West Indies were unable to finish their quota of overs in time, India still closed at 282 for 5 in 47 overs. It was the highest score ever achieved against the West Indies in an ODI. The confusion this batting display caused in the West Indies ranks can be measured by the fact that the only pitcher to finish his ten-overs quota was part-time Larry Gomes, who hit 64 in his 10 overs. Richards was for 44 in his six. Meanwhile, none of Roberts, Marshall, Davis and Holding finished their quota of ten. Marshall, in fact, finished as the best pitcher at 1-23 of seven!
King Viv threatens….
Which left the West Indies with the need to set a new record to win. Scoring just over six over was challenging even for a hitting lineup that featured Greenidge, Haynes, Richards and Lloyd. And the world champions got off to a bad start, with India’s Balwinder Sandhu catching Haynes’s leg earlier without even double digits on the board. Kapil Dev, who the Windies must have been fed up with at this stage, now added some bowling salt to the hitting wounds he had inflicted a few hours earlier when he knocked out Greenidge 16. The score was 22-2, and a huge annoyed seemed on the cards.
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Viv Richards had other ideas. Considered by many to be the best hitter in the world in any game format, he had spearheaded an incredibly fast career chase in Test 1 with a staggering 61 of 36 deliveries, and seemed in the mood for a repeat performance. Cutting with the usual arrogance and driving with brute force, he put the Indian bowling to sword, threatening to win the match singlehandedly. However, it was too good to last. Although he ran to 64 in just 51 deliveries, no one else seemed to support him. When Madan Lal pitched Richards clean, the West Indies were scoring fast but were 94-4, Lloyd had fallen cheaply.
… But Shastri cuts it!
Faoud Bacchus and Gomes later teamed up and replaced Richard’s madness with an old-fashioned method, with Gomes being surprisingly aggressive for a change (he even hit a six!). The pair hit pretty hard, poor delivery aside, and although running speed kept climbing, there was a feeling that something might happen here; after all, these were the West Indies. What happened was an amazing bowling spell by the Indian bowling hero of the day.
Ravi Shastri had made his debut in 1981 as a bowler who knew how to hit a little. Since then, he had been caught in the middle of those two roles, to the point that many wondered if he was a bowler who knew how to hit or a batsman who knew how to bowling. On this day, he did both. Having helped India get off to a good start, he now played a crucial rule by slamming the door that Gomes and Bacchus were trying to open. The West Indies fell from 154 to 4 to 192-7, with all three wickets – the dangerous Bacchus, Gomes and Marshall targeting the young Indian left armorer who would be India’s most successful bowler with 3-48 of his eight overs.
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Although Jeffrey Dujon refused to give up on the ghost and went boldly in and Roberts threatened briefly, it never really happened after that. The run rate continued to climb, with Kapil Dev (2-33 in 10) and Sandhu (2-38 in 10) being particularly difficult to score on death. When the final installment of the match was released, the West Indies were 255-9, with Dujon undefeated with a brilliant 53. India had won by 27 runs. It was the first time they had beaten the West Indies in an ODI. It remains one of the biggest ODI disorders in history.
A precursor to Lord’s, 1983?
The West Indies fought back in the matches that followed, winning the decisive ODI and also taking the test series 2-0. But that day in Berbice, cracks had shown in his armor. India and the West Indies would meet again three times in the 1983 World Cup, and this time India would win twice, the most memorable in that final when they defended just 183. Interestingly, in that final too, an Indian first starter scored, Balwinder Sandhu got the first West Indies window in the chase, and Richards tried to fight his way to victory single-handed before being fired by… well, Madan Lal.
The West Indies, who had never lost a match in the tournament, would never win a World Cup again. India, who had never beaten a major team, would win two of them. No one could have seen him coming on the morning of March 29, 1983. But in the evening, as the Indian players celebrated and Kapil Dev collected his Best Player of the Match award for an excellent performance in all respects, the balance of a day Cricket showed the first signs of smooth change.
That’s why for all the titles and series that India has won in the shorter version of the game, that match in Berbice is still special. He showed the world that the West Indians could lose. Most importantly, India could win!
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She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.