it’s been a long time coming since Kapil’s Devils won the 1-day version of cricket world cup back in 1983. that was for my dad’s generation. i heard shabana azmi mention the other day that 50% of india’s population is 25 years of less old. so this one’s for that half.
that was a team of rag-tag players knit together under us vs. world chip on their shoulders. some were supremely gifted (kapil included) and some were not so (amarnath, for example) – but every single person delivered to their abilities, and they played with no other agenda but to play good cricket. cut to today, it’s quite the same. dhoni’s boys aren’t the top of the line players, but they had much the same qualities. from pathan’s sheer talent to joginder singh’s grit, from yuvraj class to yusuf pathan scrappy play, each player did what they had to do, what they could do.
it was early diwali and fire crackers were booming well into the night, and television pretty much was blanketed with coverage of celebrations. it’s kind of like post-election coverage when the returns start streaming in. i got glued into TimesNow, CNN-IBM, ESPN/Star Sports, and AajTak channels to take in the excitement around the country. funny thing is the coverage from chennai showed bunch of baffoons singing rajini songs. brought me a chuckle. the general routine for the TV shows is to camp out near the players’ homes and interview their parents. throw in one of the ex-players (preferably from the 1983 batch) and a foreign player and you have a show going.
things seem to going india’s way these days. low inflation, rupee appreciation, global expansion and sport success seem to be amplifying the general country’s mass psyche. all of a sudden those 50% 25-year-olds think they can beat the world. much like the new team india.
Anil Bhai, agree with most of your comments, but disagree with you on Jimmy…Methinks Mohinder Amarnath was a superbly gifted player (see his record at Cricinfo – Average of 40+)
Nice blog though – am sure it will catch a big following soon….
hey kake, writing on a blog has been awesome experience so far. anyway.. i think he delivered for the team, but not sure about his talent.
Nicely written. I still remember watching the 83 final. Fairly new TV, a bunch of neighbors at home, I was really young and had no clue what cricket was. I remember rooting for India tremendously.
This was good too. Having lost all interest in cricket since the late 80s, this at least made it a little interesting considering that the T20 series is still very new and hard to rig!
hmm… i never watched it, neither had a tv then (nor the tv coverage) where i lived — mancherial, adilabad district, andhra pradesh . i do remember reading the eenadu paper to read the daily reports of the ensuing west indies tour though. malcolm marshall, michael holding, viv richards, clive lloyd and jeff dujon were the stars then.
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