In July-August 1985, India went to Sri Lanka. By then, Sunil Gavaskar was batting in the middle order (don’t know why) and India was opening with Lalchand Rajput. India was expected to beat Sri Lanka, but the reverse happened. India found them tough and in the first test, India was battling to avoid a possible defeat. Tests from Sri Lanka weren’t telecasted leaving us glued to the radio. We shall revert to the series but before that I have something more important to share.
At this point of time I remember, I found a copy of the magazine called Sportsworld. As I flipped the pages, I found a caption, “testing time for Kapil Dev.” Now, Sportsworld came from the South(from the publishers of the The Hindu) and was a very elite magazine. Kapil Dev’s innings against Zimbabwe in the World Cup 1983 was once in a lifetime, but it was recalled by the author in a subdued undertone. The thrill, the narration, the crests, and the troughs were missing. I got the details but not the real innings. Since there are no visuals for the innings, no nasal exclamations of Bill Lawry, measured appreciation of Ritchie Benaud or unbridled excitement of Tony Greig as an auditory garnishing, we might never know what happened that day. Scores alone do not do justice, though it was worst enough – 17 for 5. Zimbabwe’s batting and bowling were both world class – they had beaten already Australia earlier – as their most players were county trained. Therefore, from 17 for 5, a 70 or 80 to take the score to 160 would not have been enough. A minimum 225 were needed and India’s 7th wicket fell at 102. From there, Kapil Dev took India’s score to 266!
Kapil Dev did his day job as well later – of bowling 12 overs. The pieces of my cricketing database were piling up.
Back in Sri Lanka, on the final day of the first test, Vengsarkar was left stranded for 98 shepherding the lower order to play out as many overs as possible. Those who were at the ground will know the innings was as great as any played against the best bowling attacks. In the years to come, many batsmen would realize how tough it was to bat in Sri Lanka.
Vengsarkar’s innings did save the game for India but not before Sri Lanka tried their best to shave off the runs in limited overs available. A 19-year-old Aravinda de Silva started with a first ball Six off Kapil Dev. After a frenetic half an hour of play, in which they lost four wickets, Sri Lanka agreed for a draw. Toothless Indian bowling was rarely supported by spineless batting (I must add here that Sri Lanka’s bowling was well supported by the Umpires, who were not only inexperienced but unfriendly).
It was vindicated in the next test in which several Indian batsmen were liberally adjudged LBW culminating in India’s defeat. Sri Lanka did bat well- slow and laborious runs were scored by Amal Silva- the wicket keeper who never did anything else of note- and by Roy Dias, who became as dreadful for India as Javed Miandad or Mike Gatting.
India had a chance to level in the third test, but Sri Lanka avoided defeat by well executed time-wasting tactics. They thus got their first test series win at the expense of India.
The ODIs were similarly frustrating for India, who won the first one, again due to a 90 by Vengsarkar but the lost the next one. The third was washed off but India would have lost it if it was completed. Vengsarkar scored a fifty in each of them.
I was getting frustrated at inability of Kapil Dev to do anything significant with the ball. So far in two years, I had not seen him winning any games for India with the ball. All his efforts were before I started watching cricket. I wondered why he could not blow away Sri Lanka like Marshall used to do to all other teams. Had he ever done that?
Well, my brother got me excited about the coming tour of Australia. Just about that time I came to know that every year a tri series happens in Australia. India had played it once in 1980-81.
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