World Cup 1983: 25 years on

Ayaz Memon looks back at the magical, surreal summer that ended with Kapil Dev raising aloft the World Cup. From cricinfo:

Show me a person who gave Kapil Dev’s team any chance of winning the 1983 World Cup: I will show you a liar and an opportunist.

The story of how David Frith, then editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly, had to literally eat his words after he wrote India off as no-hopers has been told far too often to be repeated here, yet is symbolic of the utter disdain with which the Indian cricket team was viewed before the tournament. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the situation was “hopeless, but not serious.”

My own belief in the Indian team’s prospects, too, tended towards zero. True, there had been some glimpses of excellence when Kapil Dev’s team beat mighty West Indies at Berbice in a one day game preceding the 1983 tournament, but India’s track record in one-day cricket, and especially in the two previous World Cups, had been pathetic to say the least.

[Photo: The catch that changed cricket: Kapil is mobbed by happy spectators after the dismissal of Richards in the final]

More:

Above, Kapil Dev lifting the trophy at Lords, after beating West Indies to win the Prudential World Cup in 1983.

Some thought a World Cup could be won by fluke: Kapil

Kapil Dev speaks to The Telegraph, Calcutta, in the lead-up to the June 25 celebrations at Lord’s. Excerpts:

Q Clearly, this is an emotional time for you…

A (Laughs) Basically, I’m an emotional person… I’m particularly looking forward to the reunion at Lord’s… We’ll be reminiscing, cracking jokes… Pulling each other’s leg.

Well, what could happen on the 25th?

Quite a few (nine, really) of us are 50-plus and, so, I expect a lot of leg-pulling… Generally, I could be a target … I’ll be one of the team, my days of captaincy have gone… (Krishnamachari) Srikkanth and (Sandeep) Patil would talk a lot at team meetings, let’s see whether that has changed… Sunil (Gavaskar) has a great sense of humour and he could lighten up things… Dilip (Vengsarkar) wouldn’t say much at team meetings, but I don’t know whether he’ll be as quiet now when we return to the Lord’s dressing room… Kirti (Azad) would joke a lot and I remember Yashpal (Sharma) knew everything about everybody… Basically, mazza aye ga (It’ll be fun).

More:

That catch, that inswinger

India were booked at 66:1 before the 1983 World Cup started. Then they beat West Indies, overcame a hiccup against Zimbabwe, brushed aside Australia, and beat England in the semi-final to set up a final against the two-time defending champions. Having lost the toss, India batted first, making 183, and that paltry score turned out to be a winning one as West Indies collapsed for 140, the greatest upset in the history of the World Cup. Cricinfo picks out five crucial moments from the final.

More:

Lords of ‘83: Men who won India the Cup of Joy

CNN-IBN celebrates and honours the men who scripted history for Indian cricket on a special show Lords of ‘83.

The show conducted by CNN-IBN editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai saw the legends candidly recall the big moment - both on the field and off it. From the team’s strategy to who got to drink the most champagne to who got the maximum adulation from female fans, the show revisited some of the unseen, unheard of times.

The panel comprised Kapil Dev, the captain of that World Cup winning team; Sunil Gavaskar, an incomparable batsman; Balwinder Singh Sandhu, the man who started it all by bowling out Gordon Grenidge; Syed Kirmani, the finest wicketkeeper India has ever seen; Yashpal Sharma, one of the most astounding heroes of the ‘83 triumph and the charismatic Sandeep Patil.

Read the story and watch the video here:

It’s quite an expedition to the top of Mera Peak

Nepal’s complex fee structure calls climbing this mountain a ‘trek’. Don’t be fooled by the terminology, says Stephen Goodwin in The Independent:

Frostbitten toes, swollen and purple, are a sobering sight when you’re bound for the same cold, high place where the damage was done. The young man was sitting in a hut doorway in the hamlet of Tangnag in Nepal’s lovely Hinku valley, massaging his deep frozen digits. He’d reached the summit of Mera Peak a few days earlier, but at a cost. Now his group was heading down valley while our group was hiking up, a little chastened.

As it turned out, the lad was fortunate and got away with just “frost nip”. Feeling would return, though probably with a painful phase, and there would be no amputations. Others in the Hinku during October were less fortunate. Almost every morning during our 10-day trek up the valley we saw helicopters heading for the base of Mera to chopper out frostbitten and/or exhausted trekkers. It certainly made us think. “Are my boots warm enough? Am I really up to this?”

More:

Into the death zone: An amazing mountain rescue operation

The attempt by some of the world’s best climbers to reach a dying mountaineer on Annapurna has redeemed a sport once known for its selfishness. Jonathan Brown in The Independent, UK:

Mingma Sherpa ran through the narrow winding streets of Kathmandu engaged in a desperate search. The Nepalese logistics expert employed by a Spanish mountain rescue team had been looking for help all night. It was not until 5am, shortly before dawn in the Himalayan capital, that he found the man he was looking for and began banging on his door.

Inside his hotel room, the Kazakh climber Denis Urubko was sleeping off the effects of a gruelling expedition to climb Makalu without oxygen. For the mountaineer, his conquest of the 8,463m (27,765ft) peak just a few days earlier was the 15th time he had ventured higher than the 8,000m mark - the point which signifies the start of the Death Zone above which human life is unsustainable. Yet, despite his state of near exhaustion, he was unable to refuse the Sherpa’s urgent pleas. He got up, packed and immediately left for the airport prepared, without hesitation, to go straight back into that most lethal of places.

[Photo: The summit of Annapurna, which stands 8,091m above sea level, has claimed the lives of four in every 10 climbers who have reached its peak.]

More:

The Great Khali’s great comeback

The pro wrestler returns to India for a month-long vacation, and his fans just can’t get enough of him, writes Rama Lakshmi in The Washington Post

After two hours of swaying to thumping Bollywood neo-folk music and listening to stock stage jokes, the fans grew impatient and began chanting for the star of the evening to show up. “We want Khali! We want Khali!”

And when the Goliath-size professional wrestler of that name appeared on stage in a blue cotton shirt, jeans and ponytail, thousands of hands thrust cellphone cameras into the air to capture the image.

“Khali, we love you,” screamed men and women alike. “The Khali bomb!” yelled a male voice. Little boys tried to climb over barricades to get closer to the stage, on a college campus.

In India, public adulation and hysteria like this is usually reserved for stars of cricket or the film industry known as Bollywood. But Khali has earned his frenzied fame by becoming the Indian icon of American TV wrestling. He is the first man from this country to rise high in the American gladiatorial adventure of World Wrestling Entertainment, winning the world heavyweight championship in July 2007.

more

Previously on AW:

Big man big heart

Great Khali gears up

Big man, big heart

The journey of The Great Khali, India’s first WWE wrestler, is an astonishing one. In Tehelka, Shantanu Guha Ray susses out the man behind the spectacle:

Steve Carell, lead actor of Get Smart, once told an mtv.com reporter about a hulk on the sets who impressed everyone though he had a small role. “He could put his hand over your entire head and crush you. He’s a very sweet guy, but he did not speak English really well. I don’t even know if he was completely aware that he was doing a movie.” Carell was talking about The Great Khali, a former Mr India who briefly held, in 2007, the world champion’s title at the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE, formerly, the WWF).

Now an icon across the United States, he was India’s “champion bodybuilder” in 1997 and 1998. At seven feet, three inches, and weighing 190 kilos, he is the only Indian on the WWE bandwagon (there was Tiger Ali Singh signed up before him but Singh was from Canada). Now based in Atlanta, The Great Khali comes from Dhirana in Himachal Pradesh and old-timers in Shimla recall how one Dalip Singh Rana would toss luggage onto the carriers of buses with consummate ease. That was part-time work; his full-time job was crushing stone for local contractors.

More:

Previously on AW:

Great Khali gears up

Yak polo loses out to CIA outpost

From The National:

Chitral, Pakistan: There are new casualties in the hunt for Osama bin Laden: yak-mounted, polo-playing herdsmen who have been told to shift their annual competition from a remote corner of Pakistan for “security reasons”.

Pakistan’s intelligence, the Inter-Services Intelligence, has ordered polo players to move their contest to a neighbouring district because the current site is too near a secret CIA surveillance post.

The hugely popular festival takes place in the Hindu Kush mountains - on what is probably the highest polo ground in the world - in Chagril, on the ancient Silk Road bordering Afghanistan’s Wakhan corridor.

More:

No rights = No Olympics

In an open letter, Human Rights Watch has asked world leaders to stay away from the Olympic Games, unless China agrees to make key human rights improvements

World leaders should defer accepting invitations to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing until the Chinese government makes key human rights improvements, Human Rights Watch said in an open letter today. In order to secure leaders’ participation, the Chinese government should allow an independent international investigation into events in Tibetan areas since March 10, lift restrictions on the press nationwide, stop jailing dissidents, and increase pressure on Sudan.

To win its bid to host the 2008 Games, which open on August 8, the Chinese government made both broad commitments to improving its human rights record, and specific pledges to improve media access in advance of the Games. The participation by heads of state and government at the opening or closing ceremonies, which is crucially important to the Chinese government, remains a key point of leverage to press for positive changes in the coming months.
more

[Pic: Tibet activists hang up banners on the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco. K White, Reuters]

Torch troubles

The BBC’s sports editor Mihir Bose on the discord and anguish that the Olympic torch is leaving in its wake

The Olympic torch, meant to promote peace and harmony is now producing the sort of discord and anguish that I have rarely seen in an Olympic gathering, especially with a Games only four months away.

By this time, and with Beijing’s preparations in terms of stadiums and facilities having gone so well, the men and women who run the Olympics movement should have had every reason to feel satisfied.

They have taken the Olympics to a new frontier; the world’s most populated country.

more

With great glamour, great responsibility?

In The Indian Express, Amrita Shah says Bhaichung Bhutia’s refusal to carry the Olympic Torch is an ‘unusually conscientious action’. What does this say about Aamir Khan?

In an environment that encourages the promotion of self over community, Indian football captain Baichung Bhutia’s decision to opt out of the Olympic torch relay in protest against China’s crackdown in Tibet comes across as an unusually conscientious action. Carrying the torch for the most prestigious sporting event in the world is an honour that most people can only dream of. For a sportsman, especially, to deny himself that opportunity must involve no small sacrifice, and by doing so, Bhutia has raised contentious issues.

The first of course involves the Tibetan demand for autonomy, a subject that, despite the recent demonstrations and widespread media coverage, has failed to engage the average Indian. The second is the connection between sport and human rights issues, with people like Aamir Khan, P.T. Usha and Leander Paes insisting that the two must be kept separate. The third — is the person given the torch a mere carrier, playing a role crafted by others or is he a person who must answer for his participation in a public event? Or, to put it another way, is a celebrity just a famous face or a person with social responsibility?

more

And in his blog, Aamir Khan says the Olympic Games do not belong to China

Over the last few days I have received several requests not to participate in the Olympic Torch Relay. Requests through members of my family, personal friends, people who are associated with the Tibetan struggle, and my blog. I have gone through and read each and every letter, message and post pertaining to this issue.

I would like to state that I have the highest regard and respect for the struggle that the people of Tibet are going through. I completely empathize with them. Similarly, I have the highest respect and regard for the struggle that the people of Iraq, Kashmiri Pundits who have been displaced, Kashmiris in general, and the people of Palestine, are going through. I have named above just a few instances of human rights violations. Across the world, and indeed within our own country too, there are several instances and examples of atrocities and human rights violation, which are still continuing. I categorically state that I am absolutely against any form of violence, and certainly I am deeply upset whenever the basic rights of human beings are violated anywhere in the world.

However, I feel that the Olympic Games do not belong to China.

more

India takes cricket to China

From The Times, UK:

It is a game so complex - nay, fiendish - that one would think its popularity among the Chinese would be assured, but for decades it was banned under communism as a pursuit of imperialist lackeys. Now India is taking cricket to China as it attempts to turn its obsession with the game into a global money-spinner.

A first consignment of bats, balls and other paraphernalia will be sent to China in a month or two, according to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The move follows a request from the Chinese authorities for help in cultivating a game now presented as good for socialist solidarity - a team sport that bonds players.

More:

Continental divide: hockey sans frontiers

India crashes out of the Olympics, for the first time in 80 years, after going down 0-2 to Great Britain in the final of the qualifying competition in Santiago, Chile. Pakistan’s hopes, however, rest on a team that is a blend of youth and experience.

Jaydeep Basu in The Telegraph has the sad Indian story

Indian hockey has been chucked out of the Olympics before the country could say Chak De! India.

A smarter Britain slammed the Beijing door shut on the eight-time gold medallists, who failed to qualify for the first time since they debuted on the Olympic stage 80 years ago.The hour of darkness descended last night in Santiago, Chile, as two quick strikes completed what past players said was the result of years of “collective sin”.“It felt like there was a death in the family,” said Ashok Kumar, a member of the 1975 World Cup-winning side.

more

Now, read The Nation (Pakistan) to capture a can-do spirit

Pakistan team is blend of young, senior and experienced players and eagerly looking to play against host China that has improved its performance to great a extent in the field hockey in recent years, said manager-cum-coach of Pakistan hockey team here on Monday.
“Our team is under going rebuilding process and the matches against host China would provide ample opportunity to the players to improve their performance and exposure in foreign county”, Khawaja Zakauddin said on arrival of the 22-member Pakistan hockey squad including four officials here.

more

India’s F1 dream: Force India

India’s liquor and airline billionaire Vijay Mallya is now a serious player in Formula 1. In October 2007 Mallya and Michiel Mol bought the Spyker F1 team and renamed it Force India. The team will make its debut at the Australian Grand Prix on March 16. From sportinglife.com:

Vijay Mallya is no miracle worker, but it is fair to say he has transformed the fortunes of a once ailing grand prix team. Despite the fact Force India have yet to compete in a Formula One grand prix, Mallya has overseen a remarkable transitional period during the last six months. The Indian billionaire has pumped his vast wealth into reviving a marque that in its previous guise as Spyker was virtually on its knees financially.

The team has endured a rough ride during the past couple of years since Eddie Jordan decided he had had enough of bankrolling his own outfit, and enough of the politics that occasionally sees the sport itself play second fiddle. First there followed Midland, then Spyker, and now in has come Mallya like a knight in shining armour, proudly introducing India to the most lucrative sport in the world.

More:

More at Force India’s official website forceindiaf1.com:

Force India team driver Giancarlo Fisichella is relishing the challenge

Q: You are taking on a new challenge with Force India. What are your thoughts on this season?

Giancarlo Fisichella: It’s a fantastic project, and they have nearly double the budget of last year. The wind tunnel is running 24 hours a day and they are already looking at 2009. There is Mike Gascoyne, there is Mark Smith, people with a lot of experience who are very focused on this job. So I believe in this project. I think it’s going to be difficult at the beginning of the season, and maybe again we’re going to be in the last couple of rows. But we can make a big step forward from now until the end of the season, and especially for 2009. So far we’ve done a few tests and we’ve already made a step. The car balance was better and the set-up much better. The car has good potential. It’s very promising.

More:

No way out: Great Khali gears up

Dilip Singh Rana, better known by his ring name, The Great Khali, gears up on Sunday night for his WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) showdown with such big daddies of international wrestling as the Undertaker and Batista. Billed at 7 ft, 3 inches and 420 lb, The Great Khali won the Mr India title in 1995 and 1996 and has appeared in the movie, The Longest Yard. Wikipedia has a profile here.

News of Sunday’s No Way Out match follows:

No Way Out: M.V.P. vs. Undertaker vs. Big Daddy V vs. Great Khali vs. Finlay vs. Batista [Elimination Chamber Match]

MVP introduced first and goes into a pod, followed by Vis who also pods up. Great Khali will start in a pod as well.

more

And on how fans in Punjab are rooting for this one-time cop, Sify has a report:

His sport may not be played commonly in India but that has not dented the popularity of wrestler Dalip Singh, better known as ‘The Great Khali’ in the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) international circuit.

He is officially part of the Punjab Police, but lives mostly in the US.

With Khali all set for his big fight on February 17 - with five opponents ready to pin him down in the ‘No way out’ ring of death in a WWE match in the US - his fans in this Punjab city are backing up their hero. T-shirts and other accessories carrying the picture of Khali have appeared in markets and shops here and are selling.

more

Greenkeeper’s son lands Indian Masters glory

Peter Dixon in The Times.

It was the week when India was to be introduced to some of the game’s biggest names, a week when the European Tour brought its travelling circus to Delhi and with it the likes of Ernie Els, the world No 4, and Darren Clarke and Thomas Björn, the Europe Ryder Cup stars.

And it was a week that ended with the spoils taken by a self-taught greenkeeper’s son from Calcutta, who waltzed away with the inaugural Indian Masters tournament at the Delhi Golf Club yesterday and with it the colossal sum of £210,000, in a country where 300 million people are said to live on less than 50p a day.

More:

And in The Telegraph, Calcutta:

“He can be the ideal role model - humble, polite and always willing to learn,” said Satbinder Singh, former golf convener of RCGC where “SSP” grew up, caddied, learnt his skills and became obsessed with the game.

The humility may be more surprising because of his humble background, felt Indrajit Bhalotia, head of the Protouch Golf Academy at RCGC, Calcutta Ladies’ Golf Club and Tollygunge Club.

More:

Never say never again, Sania

Sports commentator Pradeep Magazine in Hindustan Times.

Is Sania Mirza’s ‘No’ to India the anguished cry of a young, successful, talented player to her nation to please let her live and breathe?

She is 21. She is a woman. She is a Muslim. And by any yardstick, one of India’s most successful international sportsperson. She plays a sport, which unlike cricket, is played all over the world. In that sport she is ranked 29th and the next best ranked Indian in the world could be a man ranked anywhere between 300 and 10,000!

And one day she screams at the top of her voice that she doesn’t want to play in India. Oh, Why?

More:

The world’s your court, Sania

In The Indian Express, Viren Rasquinha, a former captain of India’s national hockey team, on tennis star Sania Mirza’s decision to skip Indian tournament.

If the news that Sania Mirza is seriously contemplating to skip the Bangalore Open and maybe all future tournaments in India were to be true, it would be a tragedy for Indian sport. I say tragedy because let’s face the facts. Besides cricket, sport in India has very few genuine stars and household names. And Sania is not just a star, her appeal far transcends that. She is a role model and an icon to millions of little girls in a country where women sports stars can be counted on the fingertips of one hand.

Expectations of her have very often been unrealistically high and sometimes she is expected to pulverise every opponent into submission, even if it happens to be one of the Williams sisters across the net. But more than that I really feel sorry for her, because at times her national commitment has been questioned and she has been strangled by the religious issues surrounding her attire and endorsements.

More:

Tennis star Sania Mirza boycotts Indian tournaments

She says she’s tired of being dragged into trivial controversies, reports The Telegraph, Calcutta.

Sania Mirza, whose attitude, attire and aggression came to symbolise the emergence of a new India, will not play in her country this year because of recurring controversies off the court. “People are criticising me for either the length of my skirt or appearance in ads or for insulting the national flag. Do I have to prove my patriotism again and again?” the 21-year-old tennis player asked in Hyderabad. The first casualty of the announcement is next month’s Bangalore Open. The Williams sisters - Sania won a billion hearts after losing to Serena in an Australian Open match full of verve in 2005 - are slated to play in Bangalore.

More:

Match this girl

The blizzard of off-court controversies into which Sania Mirza has been dragged cannot lay her low, writes her uncle Maseeh Rahman in the Indian Express

“Come on. Keep fighting!” For a while on Show Court 3 at the Australian Open on Thursday, it seemed as if Sania Mirza was going to buckle under the pressure and surrender. After winning the first set 6-1 in her typically aggressive style, her game had faltered, and she looked pensive as she submitted 4-6 in the second. Now she was down 1-3 in the decider, and her Swiss-Hungarian opponent Timea Bacsinszky threatened to run away with the match.

The exhortation from the players’ box had come from her father, Imran Mirza, and it had sounded like part instruction, part encouragement. Like many Indian families, the Mirzas are extremely close-knit, and Imran has played a pivotal role in Sania’s emergence as a world-class tennis player. I still remember my surprise when, visiting her house in Hyderabad many years ago, I discovered that Imran and his wife Naseema were about to set off for Thiruvanthapuram in their beat-up Maruti Esteem so that Sania could participate in a tennis tournament. They couldn’t afford to fly.

more