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‘Kapil’s Devils’ relive their moment of glory

Hasan Suroor

Refute suggestion of luck playing a part in the win

The reunion was Sunil Gavaskar’s idea
The squad also collected on their old dressing room balcony
Kapil is confident that present team is good enough to do it, but…

— Photo: AFP

WINNING FEELING AGAIN! A beaming Kapil Dev holds aloft the Prudential Cup from the Lord’s balcony on Wednesday, 25 years after he first displayed it.

LONDON: Kapil Dev kept saying that it was ‘self-belief” that did the trick.

“No, no, no fluke,” he bridled at the suggestion that India was simply lucky to win the 1983 cricket World Cup thanks to sheer laziness of the West Indies’ top order.

After beating England to enter the finals, the Indian, “tail was up and we had self-belief that we could do it,” he said. The fact that India was the underdog helped in taking the pressure off.

“When we went onto the ground he told us we had nothing to lose, so let’s try and win,” recalled Mohinder Amarnath who played a starring role in that historic win.

Twenty-five years later, Kapil Dev and his ‘boys’ — now respectably middle-aged and grey — were back at the Lord’s cricket ground on Wednesday to relive the memory of that ‘magic’ evening when they pulled off a stunning nail-biting victory over the formidable West Indians to lift the World Cup.

One small problem

There was one problem though: neither Kapil nor any of his other colleagues quite remembered what happened that evening. “I was too drunk,” Kapil confessed.

And that went for others too. It was all a bit of a blur from the moment the last West Indian wicket fell and the team members realised that they had won. All they remembered was rushing to the dressing room and start partying.

“We partied all night” said Amarnath.

On Wednesday, they tried to recreate the mood. The team collected on their old dressing room balcony and Kapil was ‘presented’ the Cup once again — but this time by the United Breweries boss Vijay Mallya, the evening’s flamboyant sponsor, with a UB hoarding duly providing the backdrop.

Later Mr. Mallya unveiled a diamond-studded bat signed by all members of the team, and a specially designed diamond ball.

Both will be auctioned and proceeds from it will be shared equally by the team members.

The reunion was Sunil Gavaskar’s idea and Mr. Mallya put up the money — down to the team’s dull grey buttoned-up dress which, with its UB logo, made the players look like a “walking advertisement for the company”, as one onlooker put it.

“It is fantastic to be back here again with all the players,” said Gavaskar whose own role in that victory, incidentally, was rather modest.

The question repeatedly put to the team was: was that 1983 win a flash in the pan?

Kapil was confident that the present India team was good enough to do it again but would not put his money yet on it winning the next World Cup.

“They are so near, yet so far,” he said.

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