Flash back 1983: Kapil’s devils

India are 100-1 outsiders for the World Cup. Fair enough a price for a team that has beaten only East Africa. Only the most patriotic Indian would have plonked his money on his country. Rich Indian industrialists may have been the only ones to put on hefty sums.

Remember those were days when foreign exchange was reluctantly handed out by a parsimonious Reverse Bank of India.

All the smart money is on the West Indies. They are aiming for a hat-trick and in those days no one believed in anything other than West Indian invincibility. The odds were naturally cramped.

Kapil’s tryst with Tunbridge Wells

Tunbridge Wells. June 18, 1983: The match was to have a huge bearing on the Prudential Cup. India had played, won and lost and was looking forward to a place in the last four. A match against Zimbabwe was considered a cinch. But you never know with English conditions.

Kapil chose to bat, India nine for four with Rawson and Curran exploiting the moisture with movement, and the skipper walks out to bat. Soon, India are 17 for five and a bright and early drive back to London is a distinct possibility.

No description can ever do justice to Kapil’s innings. What I remember is his extraordinary ability to take on the conditions exactly like a specialist batsman, letting everything go beyond off stump and playing himself in. There was a luncheon break at 1 pm and India were still in poor shape but Kapil is looking better and better even as the pitch sheds its hidden moisture.

It was after lunch that the Zimbabweans came to realise what Kapil could do. The hospitality marquees around the boundary are peppered with his drives. There were as many as 16 hits to the boundary, not one chancy, or lofted. Each stroke was precise, the work of a master batsman, which Kapil could be if he put his mind to it as he did in this huge crisis brought on by his decision to bat.

Only the fear of running out of overs compelled him to start lofting the ball. Now the colourful rhododendron bushes that marked the edges of county club property, the Nevill ground, came under threat as the sixes rained down on them. Suddenly, umpire Merwyn Kitchen went across to Kapil to whisper something in his ear.

Apparently, he was passing on the announcement that had come over the tannoy — this is the highest individual score in a one-day international and in a World Cup match.

Kapil had just passed Glenn Turner’s 171, his final tally an imposing 175* out of the 254 runs, a whopping 69 percent, of the runs that came off the bat in the Indian innings of 60 overs (12 extras). Amazingly, this is first century by an Indian in an ODI. Kapil did his part to perfection in bowling as well, as India were home by 31 runs.

As we were driving into the ground that morning, television crew vans were seen leaving. The technicians of BBC had called a nationwide strike. Not one stroke of the greatest innings in the annals of limited-overs history was recorded. For years, I had to fend off rumours that I had a videotape of the innings. How I wish I had.

Then and Now: