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The wonder that was that Victory.

Victory and defeat, both are the parts of the life of any human being. One goes to surmount the whole world and he may be defeated by a small and simple thing produced before him by the nature. It is said that most difficult task in the world is to win the hearts of the people. It can only be done by the love and love is a phenomenon which happens on its own. Love can not be forced.

Victory and Defeat
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Every moment
Life plays the
game of check and mate,

But
By having a mate
one becomes a looser for a few moments only,
Life does not end with this defeat.
And
By giving a check
one can win over others for few moments only,
he can not be a winner forever.

One can not be a winner forever but some victories always remain alive in the history. There are victorious moments which remain etched deeply in the mind of watchers and readers who read about those victorious moments.

Year of 1983 was a good year for Hindi cinema. In commercial category, Wo Saat Din, Hero, Betaab, had launched 3 new heros, Anil Kapur, Jacky Shroff and Sunny Deol respectively. In middle order category, Arth and Masoom were released. In parallel cinema Ardha Satya and Paar, Mandi, Bazaar were released that year. Jane Bhee Do Yaraon also came around same time. Ketan Mehta’s Holialso came in same year. Commercial cinema was declining and though many Amitabh Bachchan starrer Coolie, Mahan, Nastik etc were released but none of them was matching with his past glorious films though few of them were super hits and rest were hits. Jeetendra’s Himmatwala was released and a team was formed consisting of Jeetendra, Kadar Khan, Sri Devi or any other south Indian actress and south indian producer and director.

Commercial cinema was declining and if we look back we can see only parallel films movement gave good films in those times.

Anyway the best thrilling moments were brought to the people by Indian Cricket team by winning the Prudential Cup.

Mohinder Amarnath delivers the ball to Michael Holding and ball strikes his pads and goes toward Sunil Gawaskar, who runs to save the leg bye runs and he sees that umpire has given Holding out and he picks up the ball and he sees that audiences are entering the ground and he makes a fast run towards the pavilion. The thrill of watching the running little master Sunil Gawaskar towards pavilion with cricket ball in his hand and the thrill to watch Kapil Dev receiving the Trophey of world cup and hoisting it above his head with a broad smile on his face, showing almost all his teeth, has got no other parallel.

Moments after winning the Prudnetial Cup :-

Films in thriller’s genre have to have this excitement and unpredictability which was present during entire Prudential Cup.

Nobody had ever thought that India could win a One day match against West Indies, leave alone expectations of winning the world cup.

Austria is one of the organiser countries hosting Euro Cup 2008 and many Austrians had ran a campaign to stop Austrian team from playing in Euro Cup because they thought their national team was too weak for such a competitive level. They had a fear that their weak team would be defeated badly and it would be very insulting for them and their team.

Indian cricket team in the 1983 world cup was not seen differently by the media in UK.

Every cricket lover knows the thrilling history of winning the Prudential Cup.
India won initial two matches and then lost next two matches and then won the last two league matches against Zimbabwe and Australia and entered in to the semi-finals. But the decisive point in the league matches was the match against Zimbabwe. India had lost 5 wickets for 17 runs only and reached captain Kapil Dev in to the field. Inspite of suffering from a fever he played the magical inning of 175 runs (not out).

But how things happen in life? There is no video available of that particular match because camera crew of England covering the world cup was on strike that day.

Kapil’s benevolent and heroic performance left no visual record behind and it was done in true manner of altruism as they say, do good and forget.

People have heard about Kapil Dev’s wonderful inning but they have not seen it. It has become a mythological inning and truly history can not contain mythology. Mythology is too above than the records of history.

Not that earlier no other batsman had played such a huge inning in ODI. Kapil himself had broken the record of Glen Turner (171 runs) and Vivian Richards had broken the Kapil’s record (of 175 runs) within a month time only by making 181 runs but that particular inning of Kapil Dev remains a classic and best inning in the history of ODIs. This was the most decisive inning as it paved the way for winning the world cup. It gave required thrust to the team.

When audience can get thrill while watching Lagaan then one can imagine the degree of thrill of witnessing the moments of World Cup 1983.

Dilip Vengsarkar, second major batsman of Indian cricket team after Sunil Gawaskar, was wounded in the league match only in the their second match against West Indies when his all time rival Marshal’s bouncer had hit him on the face. Vengsarkar, called by the nickname of Colonel, could not play in semi-final and final matches.

After India reached to the semi-final, DD had arranged the live telecast of semi-final and final matches.

25th June 1983:- India had got out on a very average score of 183 runs only.

Indian inning – final match 1983

West Indies had started playing. And as it was the pattern in almost all the matches in that world cup, in final match also Balwinder Sandhu took first wicket. He sent back Garden Greenidge to pavilion and at that time West Indies had score of 5-6 runs only. Vivian Richards came to play and he and Dasmond Haynes started making runs. They were playing without any difficulty. Viv Richards was the best batsman as far as one day game was concerned and Haynes was understood as best opener batsman for ODIs.

Cricket is not the only matter in the life and soon it was time for DD to telecast 1-1.5 hours news related programmes. Radio stations were also following the similar routine.

It was hard to pass the time and to have dinner peacefully. Curiosity, anxiety and helplessness of not watching the exciting match, all kind of mixed emotions were making the situation difficult.

English news was running at that time and news readers did not tell us the score but they said with mysterious smiles on their faces that match has reached at an interesting point. It was a too cruel prank they had played with the audiences. There was another short programme before DD was to resume the telecast of the game. Can’t recall why we could not get score from radio.

In that final match Kapil took a wonderful catch of Vivian Richards and it again turned the direction of match in favour of India. Indian team was not having very good fielders. Such catches were attached with the image of Eknath Solkar and Kapil Dev exhibited a parallel to Solkar’s mythological fielding performances.

Some frozen memories of that wonderful event

Winning Prudential Cup reveals many secrets about team work. Individually many cricket players, came in to Indian cricket team after 1987, could be having better records on individual basis but there has been no comparison with the team spirit shown by the Indian cricket team during Prudential World cup and later till 1987. They were complementary to each other and collectively they represented a force to reckon with.

From June 1983 till November 1987, Indian Cricket enjoyed its golden time. Those 4 years remain as most shining years of Indian Cricket. After winning the world cup on 25th June 1983, Indian cricket team hardly lost (perhaps none) any ODI till they were defeated by England in Reliance Cup’s semi final on 5th of November 1987.

Afterall one can not remain as a winner all through his life!!!!

Hindi cinema has not made many films covering the sports and there is no film which could cover the real life victory in any sport.

India winning Prudential cup certainly provides a good material for a good film. Indian cinema should develop a craft to cover important events happened in the country.

As far as cricket is concerned we have Lagaan and Avval Number but Avval number covers terrorism also and its not a film covering sports only.

Ye Hai Cricket :-

Indian cinema should connect sports with the themes used in making the films. Its a nice combination.

Many cricketers have done films also. Salim Durrani had started this trend in 1975 with “Charitra“, which was made by BR Ishara.
Sunil Gawaskar appeared in few marathi films and played self in few hindi films also.
It was Sandip Patil from the team of world cup 1983 who was formally launched in the film “Kabhi Ajnabi the” where he shared screen with Poonam Dhilon and Deba Shri Roy. In the recent years, many cricketers have acted in the films.
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Its time to salute the team spirit and wonderful performance of Indian Cricket team that won the Prudential World Cup in 1983.

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