25-Jun-1983, a special day for lovers of cricket in India. 25years back, on this day India pulled off an amazing victory over the mighty West Indies and as they say, rest is history. I very vividly remember this special day. I was about 14 then, living a small town Chamarajanagar about 150kms south-east of Bangalore. There were only a handful of houses that had a TV set then. Such houses used to sport an antenna above their roof and was by and large a status symbol. We didn't had TV in our house. I had to use my dad's influence to get a seat in the jam-packed house of a neighbor that had a TV. Gavaskar went quickly, but Srikkanth continued and what appeared then an whirlwind innings. However we all lost hope when India were bundled out for 183. We left the house dejected only to allow the people of that house to eat something and enjoy some privacy for 30mins or so.
We came back and were ecstatic to see Gordon Greenidge shouldering arms to Balwinder Sandhu and getting bowled (I don't think anyone that had tuned in will ever forget this dismissal). There was a small problem, someone who couldn't get inside the house had cut the cable that used link the antenna and the TV. By the time we got it fixed, we were heart broken to see Viv Richards in the rampaging mood. He got out and few more wickets went cheaply and we started to think, "may be....may be...". Dujon started a rear guard defence and it was all over with a great spell by Mohinder Amarnath that read 7-0-12-3. There were crackers all around and celebrations went past midnight even in remote towns like Chamarajanagar. Little did we know then that this event would be a major turning point in the history of Indian Cricket.
Since then Indian Cricket has progressed quite a lot. But nothing comes closer to this victory. My son, 10yrs old now and who is extremely passionate about cricket, however doesn't understand why I'm so excited about a victory that was achieved 25yrs back. Couldn't explain him anyways.
Here is a link to cricinfo's coverage and here is a youtube clip of the finals.
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