"His stupendous innings turned the match on its head..." ❤️

A Quintessential Knock! & A Dazzling Partnership!!

From Sourav and Dravid ❤️

26th May 1999

#memoriesfromdiaries

From my personal diary entry, dt 26th May 1999

The ICC World Cup 1999

This particular day went down in cricketing history, as one of the most memorable days in the annals of the game!

When Sri Lanka came a cropper at the Cooper County ground! 😊

Or rather, the timid Sri Lankan side was taunted at Taunton by the Bengal Tiger and The Wall! 😊

ICC World Cup 1999 - Special Issue from INDIA TODAY | May 1999

This India vs Sri Lanka ICC World Cup fixture had all those ecstatic moments that we most eagerly watch out for, in an ODI!

This was Sourav’s first World Cup! Same with Dravid as well!

And Sourav went on to post his personal best – his highest ODI Score - of 183 runs off just 158 balls.

Same with Dravid, who amassed 145 runs off just 129 balls.

The Indian side were up against the formidable defending champs Sri Lanka!

Sri Lanka, won the toss and elected to field first!

And the Indian duo’s (Saurav & Dravid) quintessential knock of 300 plus runs, shattered the hope and the confidence of the opposition to smithereens, pulverizing them by a phenomenal 157 runs, posting a whopping 373/6 in 50 overs. 😊

26th May 1999 also goes into the record books for having made One-day International Cricket’s first ever 300-run partnership.

There were hysteric moments each and every time Ganguly belted the ball across the boundary, [17 times], and over the boundary [7 times]!

A blazing tit for a rhetorical tat from the Indian side, who had done miserably against Sri Lanka (the defending champs) just in the previous edition of the World Cup in Eden Gardens, Calcutta.

And as I’ve mentioned in the last line of this particular diary entry, Ganguly’s 183 had overtaken Kapil’s unbeaten 175 that Kapil had achieved in the ICC World Cup 1983.

How did Kapil achieve this unbeaten 175?

In the 1983 World Cup, having lost two consecutive matches – against the Aussies and the West Indies, India were facing a must-win situation in this particular world cup match against Zimbabwe, to keep their World Cup hopes alive.

The situation kept worsening, when India’s top order collapsed dramatically. Openers Sunil Gavaskar and Kris Srikkanth were dismissed for ducks. Mohinder Amarnath (5), Sandeep Patil (1), and Yashpal Sharma (9) also fell cheaply, leaving India reeling at 17 for 5.

That’s when Kapil Dev – the Captain stepped in.

Coming in at number six, Kapil Dev, single-handedly rescued the Indian innings, playing a magnificent knock of 175 (not out) off just 138 balls. His innings was studded with 16 fours and 6 sixes.

Kapil’s Captain’s knock was indeed a bolt-from-the-blue heroic effort that propelled India from a precarious 17 for 5 to a challenging total of 266 for 8 in their allotted 60 overs.

60 overs???

Yes, the first three Cricket World Cups were played with 60 overs per side.

The matches were reduced from 60 to 50 overs per innings, when India and Pakistan jointly hosted the 1987 Cricket World Cup. This change was primarily due to the shorter daylight hours in the Indian subcontinent compared to England's summer.

Eight balls per over??

Also, yet another curious fact of cricketing history is that, the first-ever ODI was played in 1971 between Australia and England, - a 40-over-a-side match with eight balls per over.

I am tempted to quote from Ravi Shastri’s 2021 Stargazing: The Players in My Life, where Ravi talks about Kapil – the Cricketer!

Here goes –

Kapil Dev was the most talented of the four great all-rounders of my era. Fans of Ian Botham, Imran Khan and Richard Hadlee might not agree, but having watched and played against all – including Kapil in domestic cricket over several years – I stand firm by my assessment.

Kapil made a name for himself as one of the hardest and cleanest strikers of the ball.

I remember a match against the West Indies in Nagpur where he sent a Patrick Patterson delivery rocketing to the fence and it ricocheted back to the bowler. Patterson wasn’t amused.

An instinctive and aggressive batsman, Kapil was always on the lookout for quick runs. But he wasn’t a senseless slogger. He relished big shots and most of his strokes came from hits through the line, usually smack from the middle of the bat.

He was also a superb runner between wickets, which put additional pressure on the fielding side. He didn’t plan his innings. There was no deep analysis. (That came when he started doing commentary!)

He was a terrific improviser, and had an excellent eye and reflexes. For someone who played so aggressively, he was astonishingly good in tough situations, difficult conditions and pitches.

The innings which immortalized Kapil is obviously his 175 not out against Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup. It is among the most extraordinary ODI innings for the daunting circumstances in which it was played.

We were caught on a vicious seaming track at Tunbridge Wells. The top order fell in a heap, leaving us precariously placed. I remember being sixth out, when the score was just 20-odd.

Kapil took maybe ten or fifteen minutes to settle down, and then suddenly his batting changed. Once he had got his eye in, nothing fazed him.

Whether fast, medium pace or slow, the Zimbabwe bowlers came under heavy attack as he kept depositing the ball into the car park.

His stupendous innings turned the match on its head, and triggered fresh ambition in the side, culminating in us beating the West Indies in the final to win the title. Kapil’s role in this triumph was salutary.

He led from the front at every opportunity. If his innings against Zimbabwe revived our fortunes and our appetite for victory midway through the tournament, the catch in the final, a steepling skier, to dismiss a rampaging Viv Richards virtually sealed the final.

His sunny personality, always brimming with optimism, was infectious and rubbed off on us all through the tournament,

says Ravi Shastri on the legendary Kapil!