They did it too....

Its over..the cup is with us ,doesnt matter if its with the team or BCCI or the customs- its still with us.What a dream run for the team,for the fans and for the little master-blaster.In the euphoria that followed there was a beautiful quote from Virat Kohli "..... sachin has carried the burden of Indian cricket for 21 years now its time for us to carry him on our shoulders...",this was in response to a querry by the anchor who asked how he felt on carrying Tendulkar on his shoulder around the grounds.That sums it all up...this CUP was for the little master.Rewind back to '83 june Lords England .Kapil's Devils as the then Indian team was called later produced a miracle....(yes MIRACLE dear ICC President Pawar,Dhoni's devils were strong contenders for the cup and they deserved  to win it ,so don't call this a miracle, but 1983 was!).The West Indian team was the team to beat then, and India did, not once but twice in the Prudential cup- as the World cup was called then. But the one thing that I still think of the 1983 World Cup is the unbeaten175 by Kapil Dev,I could only read it in the news papers.Mangalore had no TV then and with India tottering at 17 for loss of five wickets I had better things to do than listen to the commentary on AIR.The opponents were Zimbabwe and am sure i dint hear the word minnows then.If there is a recording of this historic innings by Kapil,it would be watched more times than the 175 scored by Sehwag in this World Cup.Those were the days when there was no Power Plays I guess and the teams slogged for 60 overs but scored usually around 200 take or leave 50 runs.Then we had Gavaskar going on to later become, arguably the first cricket millionaire now probably every team member is a millionaire couple of times over,some even billionaires.Now every one of the 1.2 billion of us Indians is a cricket expert with ready advise and some would even get cheap publicity by threatening,Yes threatening to  strip naked for an Indian win.Those days especially in England streakers would actually run over the grounds without a prior notice(oh! how I wish we had TV then).The team then got a rousing reception in all major cities of India,the present team takes a bus ride from Taj to Raj bhavan in Mumbai and then starts preparation for some more cricketing millions.Kapil Dev,Mohinder Amarnath,Kirti Asad,Roger Binny,Sunil Gavaskar,Syed Kirmani,Madan Lal,Sandeep Patil,Balwinder Sandhu,Yashpal Sharma,Ravi Shastri,Krishnamachari Srikkanth,Sunil Valson,Duleep Vengsarkar these were the men who made the Nation proud,these were the men who sowed the seeds of cricket in minds of every 'aam admi'who now helps the BCCI and ICC rake in billions and how many seats does he get...just 4000 tickets for the common man at the 2011 WC finals.
This win is no doubt very hard earned,well fought for and rightly deserved for Dhoni's Johnnys...it was not a miracle but the 1983 win by Kapils Devils was...miracles favours the brave.So I remember with nostalgia the 1983 win as 'The Win" of Indian cricket ever,2011 is a welcome sequel...Hope we repeat it often!

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