When life gives you a 17/5, hit a 175! - 18th June'83 - Cricket's great moment

Today ie; 18th June is a historic day in the annals of Indian cricket. Today is the day when in 1983, Kapil Dev, the Indian Cricket captain hit a 175 Not Out vs Zimbabwe in 138 balls and changed Indian cricket forever.

37 years ago, at the 3rd Prudential Cricket World Cup in England, BBC was the official broadcaster. They had just 2 channels programmed for Sports 'on air' and did not believe that the 20th match of the Prudential World Cup, India vs Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells was anything special. With three other matches happening on this day - England vs Pakistan, NZ vs Sri Lanka and Australia vs West Indies, the prioritisation led to the 'live' broadcast of the England vs Pakistan and the Australia vs West Indies game. I clarify that it was not a strike by BBC staff as has been generally believed in India over the years. Indian cricket team was not a top draw in 1983 having defeated only East Africa so far in 2 previous World Cups. Hence the decision to not cover their league match with Zimbabwe, was only logical and pragmatic.

And that's what Sport never is ! Logical and pragmatic.

India won the toss and lost Gavaskar on the second ball of the match for a duck. Then Kris Srikanth, Mohinder Amarnath, Sandeep Patil and Yashpal Sharma. 'The then Sharma ji ka beta' was back in the pavillon for 9 runs!

The mood was sliding down quick. People who had plans for sending cars back to the hotels, hailed them back. Sports media including Indian journalists hurried up from coffee machines to file stories as chaos broke out in the stadium. It is said that Roger Binny was not padded up when No 4 batter Sandeep Patil went for just 1 run and was urgently 'clothed'. For a broadcaster, the offline back end is a constant hive of activity during a 'LIVE' match. The 'inning break' show, the 'post match ceremony', the 'guest line up' are offline events that move with the progress of a match. All this activity goes into a hurried roll if the match shows signs of an early end.

With the score of 9/4, in walked Kapil Dev Ram Lal Nikhanj. Age 24, captain of the Indian cricket team, unworried about what lay behind and only focused on what lay ahead. Kapil knew two things - that the qualification to the Semi Final pretty much rested on this match and the other, that Turnbridge Wells had short boundaries.

He nudged around to steady the inning and got up to about 75 before he started the great Indian massacre. Hitting Fletcher, Butchart and even Curran (on his second spell) with gleeful abandon to the boundary. Reaching his 100 in 72 balls, the Zimbabwe players actually applauded for him as he stopped only to pause to change his bat.

He ended, actually never ended, with a 175 not out with 16 Fours and 6 Sixes. It is said that long after this match the Indian fans continued to terrorise the Zimbabwe fans for many years by asking them, 'Do you remember Kapil Dev'. That would have been a mild form of sporting molestation.

The fact that the match does not have a video recording or visual higlights adds to the mythology of it as the story gets handed down from one fan to his children in our cricket crazy nation. It is said that a fan had recorded it from the stands on his personal video recorder which was later purchased by Kapil Dev for a rich sum.

However, the match defined India as we became Cricket's biggest fandom and Kapil Dev, one of its greatest match winners.