Item in Outlook India, May 2019 with this title “Howzzat! Clive Lloyd’s West Indies Vanquished! Thr Fascinating Story of India’s First Limited Overs victory”
March 29, 1983 is a milestone in Indian cricket. India defeated the mighty West Indies by 27 runs in the second outing of a three-match series to register their maiden victory in the limited-overs format. This fantastic win helped India believe that it could play this format. Effectively, Kapil’s Devils went on to win the Prudential Cricket World Cup in 1983 at Lord’s. Veteran journalist ASHISH RAY remembers this epic win in his book “Cricket World Cup: The Indian Challenge”.
One-day cricket was introduced domestically in England in 1963 to arrest falling gate receipts. In 1975 this format evolved into the inaugural World Cup. But the BCCI was indifferent to limited overs cricket and public interest in India in the shorter version of the game was also lukewarm. More crucially, Indian cricketers experienced very few one-day internationals and were not inclined towards these either. Indeed, they performed disastrously in the first two World Cups. So, what triggered the dramatic transformation in ability and mindset in the third World Cup in 1983? Here’s the intriguing, little known story in CRICKET WORLD CUP: THE INDIAN CHALLENGE, an eye-witness history of the tournament from an Indian perspective by ASHIS RAY, the world’s senior-most still active cricket broadcaster, just published by BLOOMSBURY. (Complete Cricket World Cup 2019 coverage)
