The day and place Indian cricket found its belief

This article was first published in June 2022."It is here that we found belief” — Kapil Dev at Tunbridge Well, Kent, England in 2008 remembering his June 1983 innings of 175 not out.Your best batsman out for zero. Your biggest hitter out for zero. Your best-performing batsman of the season out for 5. Your most stylish batsman of the tournament out for 1. And the last recognised batsman of your team gone for 9. You are five wickets down for 17 runs and the now almost-certain defeat in this match will eliminate you from the World Cup tournament. You are still at the crease.What would you do? What would you think? medium92320190We don't have the answer to the second question. But we know what Kapil Dev did that day in a match against Zimbabwe. The world assumed India had lost that match. But that was the day and place 39 years ago when Kapil single-handedly found what had eluded Indian cricket – and much of Indian sports – until then. The belief that we can win. Win when everybody around you has given up on you. But not you. Not when you are Kapil Dev. Not when you are Kapil Dev of 1983. Talk about leading from the front! &#55357;&#56908; &#55357;&#56908;&#55357;&#56787;️ #OnThisDay in 1983, captain @therealkapildev slammed 1⃣6⃣ Fours & 6⃣ Six… https://t.co/ih2MGS6QXy— BCCI (@BCCI) 1655523000000In 2008, Kapil Dev returned to Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England, where the historic match against Zimbabwe took place. Fielding questions from reporters, he recalled how teammate Kris Srikkanth was forced to sit in one place through the innings lest it bring bad luck, a scene that’s depicted in the film ‘83’. “Srikkanth wasn’t even allowed to go to the toilet. He couldn’t move till the break,” he said.Sunil Gavaskar was among the ill-fated batsmen who got out early, the others being Srikkanth, Mohinder Amarnath and Sandeep Patil. He remembered how when Kapil came back to the pavilion for lunch, there was nobody in the dressing room. The score was then 106 for 7 with the captain on 51. “None of us were in the lunchroom either. We were hiding our faces. Here was a man who had shown how we should have batted,” Gavaskar said in an interview in 2008.Kapil, though, was modest about his own role in that epic victory. “Did I think I will score 175? No. All I was praying for was that as a team we reach 100 to start with. But accidents happen, and this was one such, and thank god for all of us it did,” he said in an interview to ET ahead of the release of ‘83’ last year. medium92320236He admitted he did not expect to be called in to bat so early in the innings. “I thought I had time for a warm shower when the openers went in to bat. Who would have thought we’d be 9/4 and then 17/5 against Zimbabwe? When they called me in the bathroom, I honestly did not believe them and was angry,” he said, the anger long gone, replaced by a smile instead. So magnificent, in fact, was Kapil’s knock that day that some spectators even had to remove their cars from the parking lot. Kabir Khan, director of 83, said, “One of them (a spectator) said ‘Kapil broke the windshield of my car!’ He said he had to run out of the parking lot and there were many others who followed him. There was a kind of stampede because everyone wanted to remove their cars with Kapil sir playing such big shots.”Sadly, that game was never recorded on camera because of a nationwide strike by sole broadcaster BBC back then.Kapil, though, had no regrets. “People ask, ‘don’t you feel bad it wasn’t recorded?’ and I always say, ‘no’ because it’s recorded in my head,” he said. His remarkable knock helped India reach a respectable total of 266/8 in 60 overs. India won the game by 31 runs. medium92319849While Kapil underplayed how he almost single-handedly led the team to an improbable win, he did acknowledge that the victory changed the country’s mindset as a whole. “We now felt we weren’t less than anyone and could do anything. It gave us the self-belief, and see where we are today,” he said.After all, it’s not every day you walk into a stadium when your team is teetering at 17/5, and go on to hit 175 runs in just 138 deliveries, embellished with 16 boundaries and six sixes, to guide your country to a win in a World Cup game. That victory kept the country’s hopes alive in the tournament – and India went on to defeat the Clive Llyod-led West Indies in the final to lift the World Cup for the first time ever.Kapil Dev had just made the impossible possible.Lead image: BCCI via Twitter medium nocaption923190221. Why Kapil Dev is still the captain of the team2. Why 1983 was sweeter than victories that came after3. Why there's no running out Kapil Dev medium nocaption92319041