Where were you that night?

UMPIRE`S POST

These are where-were-you-when days. The last few days have seen a generous outpouring of recollection of what people were up to when India won the World Cup on June 25, 1983.

I was in Ranchi, attending a cousin's wedding. No one had asked whether I wanted to attend. I was 11, on my first summer vacation from the boarding school that I had joined the previous year.

That itself is enough to put you in a daze, the wedding had me downright delirious. The youngest in a family of seven, I was whisked away to a place infested with relatives I did not care to be with. But such is the helplessness of childhood!

I had no idea what had happened at Lord's and whether it mattered much. One morning when I woke up on the durrie in an unfamiliar, noisy room, a pesky cousin asked if I heard the firecrackers the previous night. Apparently, there had been a bit of that because India had won a big match in England.

That was that. Indeed, that win is much bigger today than it ever was. I also have the feeling that the players who fashioned that victory have made more money from it in the last few years than when they had won.

All of it is well-deserved. That night as I slept on the durrie, India caused the biggest upset in the history of cricket. Before that World Cup, India had played only 40-odd ODIs and its only victory in the previous two editions was over East Africa.

The dominant Indian player of that generation, Sunil Gavaskar, had scored 36 runs off 174 balls in the first World Cup's opening match. He wasn't sacked after it, and that put the new format firmly in its place.

The limited-overs game was looked down upon in India, its supporters seen as trying to sell their soul. When India played their opening match against the West Indies in the 1983 World Cup, bookmakers' odds on India were 66-1.

The impact of the victory however transcended the playing aspect of the game. Indian hockey was in decline and being the world champions in cricket gave the game a new ascendancy. ODIs became popular, and then legitimate.

The World Cup moved out of England for the first time for the subsequent edition in 1987 to the subcontinent and became the Reliance Cup, sponsored by the new-age company that was going to become the dominant corporate force. Other companies followed even as Reliance moved away from consumer-facing businesses.

Ironically, the second World Cup victory, in T20 last year, is threatening the 50-over format made popular by the first one.