34 Years Ago, Kapil Dev & Co. Beat West Indies To Bring Home India's First Cricket World Cup
India had beaten West Indies by a margin of 43 runs
No Indian batsman had even reached a respectable score. The highest scorer for Team India at Lord's was Krishnamachari Srikkanth, who reached his 38 in 57 deliveries. And at the end of the first innings India had just 183 on the board. Clearly not a score they wanted to defend against a dominant West Indies in a World Cup final.
Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall's bouncers and sharp-swinging deliveries had wrecked the confidence of the Indian camp.
Indian fans had recoiled into a mode of despair, knowing well that this World Cup was not going to India.
But Kapil Dev and his boys had a plan in place. They wanted to make 183 insurmountable for West Indies. They desperately wanted to choke the flow of runs right from the word go.
They had decided to corner the West Indian batsmen with as much capability they had. They knew very well that sending Vivian Richards back to the pavilion would do the trick.
Eventually the plan fell in place. And India bundled West Indies out for 140. The unexpected had finally happened. Kapil Dev's spectacular catch finally sent Richards back to the pavilion. Clive Lloyd had perished to Roger Binny. And soon after wicket-keeper Jeff Dujon's dismissal, things changed completely.
Fans had invaded the Lord's pitch. And Kapil Dev, Kris Srikkanth, Sunil Gavaskar, Roger Binny and Balwinder Sandhu had become household names back in India.
Every child wanted to take up cricket and aspired to be like Dev, Gavaskar and Mohinder Amarnath. This was the moment when Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly started dreaming of wearing cricket whites with India's emblem on the chest.
Kapil Dev and his men had just not brought a World Cup to India. In fact, they had given birth to a nation that started dreaming and living cricket forever after.
