Cup that changed the face of Indian cricket
To say that the 1983 World Cup triumph spawned a whole new generation of cricket lovers in India would not be false. The moment Michael Holding was adjudged out off Mohinder Amarnath's bowling, it felt as if the spell that the flamboyant Carribeans had cast for close to a decade had suddenly been lifted and a whole new cricket era had been ushered in by a team that had not been given even a ghost of a chance to enter the semi-final, let alone the win the World Cup. While the 1983 World Cup loss did topple the West Indies from the pedestal in the ODI game, the Carribeans would continue to dominate Test cricket for over a decade.To the rest of the cricket fraternity, the triumph of David over Goliath was nothing short of a miracle. Ever since Clive Lloyd adopted the four pronged pace attack to send shivers down the spine of the best batsmen in the world, West Indies has seemed indestructible and even the mighty Aussies, with the likes of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson in its ranks, too could do little but cower when pit against the Carribeans. So, in a way, India's triumph in the Prudential World Cup 1983 was a cause for jubilation not just for India but for everyone who now came to realise that the West Indians were after all mortals.For India, the 1983 World Cup win ignited a revolution. In an era when the country hardly ate, drank and slept cricket, the win over the universally loved, albeit feared West Indian team was a cause for endless celebration. The noise of the crowd who swarmed into the stadium after India won is one which is sure to reverberate across the pages of Indian cricket history. To say that most of India's modern cricket heroes look were inspired to take up cricket after the '83 triumph would not be a fallacy.While cricket would not become a religion until it got a figurehead in the form of Sachin Tendulkar, the wheels had been set in motion by Kapil Dev and co. on June 25th, 1983. The epoch of cricket that followed was a glorious one for India. In 1986, India would trounce England in the latter's backyard in bith ODIs and Tests. India would give Australia a run for its money in 1985-86. A young, brash and mostly untested side that Kapil built with nothing but utilisation in mind had ended up working wonders. A team which was centred around a man who was inarguably India's greatest all-rounder, Kapil, it was never the less a team that had all the ammunition required to upset the veritable giants who were the West Indians.Even though India won the 2011 World Cup, the empotions that the '83 triumph kindled in the cricket lover will never be emulated. In 2011, India went into the tournament with more than half the cricket fraternity backing it to win the title whereas India was the outright underdog in 1983. Thirty years hence, the 1983 World Cup victory can be said to be India's most significant achievement in its rich cricket history.
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