Remembering India's first ever World Cup win in 1983, this day 35 years ago

Gordon Greenidge against India, Prudential World Cup, 1983.

India's Game #1: vs Windies, Group Stage

Winning the inaugural edition of the Cricket World Cup in 1975, and returning four years later to win it again, the Windies were the tournament favourites for the third time as well, and nothing shorter than winning a hat-trick title would have been preferred by the likes of Sir Viv Richards and co., themselves. And as mentioned earlier, the Indians were complete minnows. The game seemed an easy win for the defending champions.

Around ten hours later, the world saw quite a different result. Having won the toss, the Windies elected to put the Indians to bat first. The Indians in turn, did moderately well, scoring 262/8 in the allotted 60 overs (back then the ODIs had two teams batting 60 overs apiece instead of 50). Yashpal Sharma was the top-scorer and eventual man-of-the-match with 89 runs off 120 balls, including nine fours. Sandeep Patil (36 off 52), Roger Binny (27 off 38), Madan Lal (21 off 22) and Mohinder Amarnath (21 off 60) where the other main contributors with the bat. Yashpal was the only Indian to score boundaries in the game.

On reply, the Windies looked strong at 49/0, when Desmond Haynes (24 off 29) ran himself out. This was followed by the dismissal of Gordon Greenidge (24 off 55) in the next over, and by the time the score reached 76, Viv Richards had also returned to the pavilion. Wickets then started falling in regular intervals, and soon the Windies were reduced to 157/9. Captain Clive Lloyd (25 off 38) tried to resist, but his batting partners did not help him substantially.

But still there were enough balls left, and the last batting pair of Andy Roberts and Joel Garner looked like they were pulling off a heist, until the first ball of the 55th over, when Kirmani stumped Garner to end the innings at 228, India winning the match by 34 runs. Garner and Roberts took 37 runs each and top-scored for their team. Garner scored the only boundary of the innings. Roger Binny and Ravi Shastri picked up three wickets each for India.

The Indians meanwhile, marked a dream start to the World Cup, as with the first game itself, they exceeded the expectations they had on them.