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ON THIS DAY 40 YEARS AGO: 40 years have passed but even today the memories of that moment are fresh in the minds of Indian cricket fans when the Indian team became the world champion by defeating the West Indies for the first time. It was the day of June 25 and the year was 1983. The Indian team, under the captaincy of Kapil Dev, at Lord's, the historic ground in England, had done what no one would have expected.
After winning the toss, West Indies invited India to bat first. Sunil Gavaskar and K Srikkanth tried to give a good start to Team India but both returned to the pavilion within 59 runs.
After this, Mohinder Amarnath played an inning of 26 runs in 80 balls and then Sandeep Patil contributed 27 runs. Apart from these, none of the batsmen could play well and the whole team was bundled out for 183 runs. Mohinder Amarnath did wonders not only with the bat but also with the ball and took 3 wickets, with the help of which the West Indies team was reduced to 140 runs and India managed to win the World Cup title.
Mohinder Amarnath was awarded the Man of the Match award for his brilliant performance. Apart from Amarnath, Madan Lal also took 3 wickets in his bag and Balwinder Sandhu took 2 wickets.
The turning point of this match was the catch that Kapil Dev caught while running backwards. This catch was of Vivian Richards, who was considered the most dangerous batsman in the world at that time. Richards returned to the pavilion on a score of 57 runs and after that the West Indies team collapsed like a house of cards.
