World Championship of Cricket (Benson and Hedges Cup 1985) & ICC Champions Trophy 2013
Winning the World Cup in 1983 as well as in 2011 are considered to be the highest accolades achieved by the Indian Cricket Team in the ODI format.
Kapil’s Devils surprised everyone when they won the Cup by beating the mighty West Indies team while MS Dhoni’s Men gave billions of people the reason to come together and celebrate. The iconic scene of the 1983 captain running backwards to take Viv Richards’s catch in the Lords Cricket Ground remains etched in people's mind, and so does the nose dive at the Wankhede pitch from Gautam Gambhir, giving it all to save his wicket for the team, flash in front of our eyes when we remind us of both these historical moments respectively.
“Drinks on the house” said Kapil when asked about the celebration plans for the night, while Dhoni said "whatever secret plans we have got, it will start once we have gone to the hotel and are back to our senses to enjoy the evening."
Both these nights were long nights and it felt like this achievement of getting crowned is going to stay for eternity. But what transcribed in the span of 2 years immediately after becoming the World Champions on both the occasions is relatively lesser known and is a fairy tale in itself.
After the World Cup Victories: Nightmare of a season
1983-1984:
Having lost the WC Final to the underdogs(India), West Indies arrived at the Indian shores with a sense of revenge. These were still the days of supremacy for them, and they put no foot wrong on that tour where India couldn’t manage a single win in both the Test and ODI series. India lost the 6 Match Test Series 0-3 and got an absolute drubbing in the ODI series with the score line reading 0-5. The margin of the defeats were huge.
After that, the team led by Sunil Gavaskar won the Asia Cup in Sharjah but they lost a home series to Australia (0-3).
India next toured Pakistan and lost the ODI series 1-0.
When England toured India late in the year, the writing was all too similar as they lost both the Test and ODI series 1-2 and 1-4 respectively.
2011-2012:
India toured England the same year they won the cup. It was a two months long tour, and a tour to forget as India couldn’t manage a single victory during their whole stay. They lost 4-0 to Andrew Strauss’s team in the Tests with all four games being one-sided. The World Cup winners also lost the T20 and ODI series managing only a tied game against England.
India then went to Australia with the veterans (Sachin, Rahul, Laxman and Zaheer) playing their last tour Down Under and horrifyingly lost all the 4 Tests with big margins.
The form of Men In Blues dipped further as they managed only 3 victories out of 8 one-day games played in the Commonwealth Bank Triangular Series (Sri Lanka being the 3rd team), which also meant that they didn’t qualify for the final. Moving further, India also had a poor run in the Asia Cup as they failed to reach the final in a race between 4 teams.
Although, India managed to win an ODI series in Sri Lanka and 2 Tests in familiar conditions against New Zealand, they failed to qualify for the knockouts in 2012 T20 World Cup.
This was an era where Test Series were won only by the home team. Australia and England had already defeated India 4-0 each at their homes during this period. It was India’s chance now to put the mockers back on England when they toured India. But, India had the toughest pill to swallow as their premier squad lost the 4 Match Test series at home (1-2).
At the year end, India’s arch rivals came for a small limited overs tour and here as well Dhoni’s Men lost the ODI series 1-2 to Pakistan.
Captaincy at stake: Experts demand sacking
Post 1983 WC:
Kapil Dev managed only 2 wins in 16 games that he captained after the World Cup, following which the Board of Control for Cricket in India replaced him and re-appointed Sunil Gavaskar to lead the team.
Post 2011 WC:
Dhoni’s touch was termed as ‘Midas Touch’ by the Cricketing fraternity, but the 2011-2012 season made a very poor read for the captaincy stats (in terms of win-loss) for the first time in his career. During this period under Dhoni, India managed only 17 wins out of 49 matches across formats. At this stage, many experts of the game wanted BCCI to sack MS Dhoni from captaining India but he managed to hold onto the spot by defeating Australia 4-0 in Tests at home in early 2013.
Build up to Benson & Hedges Cup 1985 and Champions Trophy 2013
Before B&H ’85:
India all of a sudden didn’t look like a Champion side which made people think that the World Cup Win in ‘83 was merely a fluke.
Rekindling the memories, Arunabha Senagupta wrote “In the aftermath of a litany of losses, even the Indian public did not give them much of a chance. Those were days when the World Cup win had just about sunk in, and treated as a freak event.”
Before CT ’13:
Dark clouds were looming over Indian Cricket with the talk of match fixing in the Indian Premier League going around. There were rumours surfacing in the media which said big names in Indian Cricket were involved in the fixing scandal.
"2013 was the most difficult phase in my life, I was never depressed as much as I was then” said MS Dhoni in a docu-drama named ‘Roar of the Lion’. “People were talking about match-fixing and spot-fixing. It was the most talked about thing in the country. My name also came up in talks of fixing. They started showcasing in the media or social media as if the team was involved, I was involved.”
Squad News
B&H ’85: Even though the core from the 1983 winning squad was same, as many as 6 players were replaced. The biggest change was the change in captaincy as the reigns had shifted from Kapil Dev to Sunil Gavaskar.
CT ’13: At the press conference on the night of winning the 2011 World Cup Dhoni had said, “We can close the chapter right now with this World Cup because we need to build up a team again, with the amount of cricket that we are playing we need quite a few reserve players to come in and be at their best. Because if you want to do consistently well at international level, we need to have a pool of fresh players, quite a few players and not think about the results.”
Dhoni finally got his wish fulfilled two years later as India left for UK in 2013 with as many as 11 fresh players from the ones that played the World Cup in’11.
Tournament Format: League and Knockouts
B&H ’85:
Australia hosted the Benson & Hedges Cup 1985 where the tournament was to be played in coloured dresses for 50 0vers unlike the World Cup which was played in whites for 60 overs. 7 teams participated and were divided into two groups. A team competed against the other once in the group stage with the top-2 from both groups qualifying to play the semis.
CT ’13:
England hosted the Champions Trophy 2013 where the top 8 ranked teams were divided into two groups. A similar format was drafted where a team played the other once in a group stage with the top-2 from both the groups qualifying to play the semis.
Group Stage: Comfortable Victories in all games
B&H ’85:
Team India was accompanied by the Australian team led by Allan Border, England led by David Gower and Javed Miandad’s Pakistan in ‘Group A’ where they comfortably won all the three games against their opponents. The Men in Blue defeated Pakistan by 6 wickets, England by 86 runs and Australia by 8 wickets.
CT ’13:
At the Champions Trophy ’13, India were grouped along with South Africa, Pakistan and West Indies. Here too, the team won all the three games. India defeated South Africa by 26 runs, West Indies by 8 wickets and Pakistan by 8 wickets (D/L method) in a rain-affected match.
Courtesy: ESPN Cricinfo
Semi-Final: Team game at the fore once again
B&H ’85:
Ravi Shastri’s all-round performance helped India chase the target of 207 with 39 balls to spare against Geoff Howarth’s New Zealand. Madan Lal’s 4-fer, Dilip Vengsarkar’s 63* and Kapil Dev’s blistering 54* of 37 balls was equally pivotal for India putting their foot into the final. Kapil’s fifty off 30 balls was the fastest ever in ODIs at that time.
CT ’13:
India faced the runner-ups of 2011 World Cup in the semis. Sri Lanka were restricted to a below par score of 181-8 in the 50 overs which were completed on an overcast morning. Ishant Sharma bagged the Man of the Match award for his economical spell. This match also saw Dhoni rolling his arm over with the conditions favouring his gentle medium pace swing bowling. Fifties from Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli ensured an easy victory for the Men in Blues with 8 wickets in hand and 15 overs to spare.
Up to the Final: Clinical in many ways
B&H ’85:
Sunil Gavaskar’s men were ruthless in the manner which they won all the games heading towards the final. Their batting depth was impeccable but it was the contribution from the bowlers that did the trick against every opponent. Their fielding was as lightning as it had ever been till that point in time.
CT ’13:
Similar was the case for MS Dhoni’s boys. India had fixed their only worry in the batting department by introducing Rohit Sharma to the opening slot. His partnership along with Shikhar Dhawan was one of the highlights of the tour. With a pretty young team, their fielding side was one of the bests in the tournament. But the actual winners were their inexperienced bowlers who set up all the matches with their clinical performances leading to the final.
Final: Ebbs and Flows
B&H ’85:
India faced Pakistan in the Final. The political rivalry hadn’t yet come to the fore but the intriguing fact was nobody expected the two Asian teams to come such a long way into the tournament in Australia.
Batting first, Pakistan scored 181-9 in their 50 overs. Kapil Dev and Laxman Shivramakrishnan picked 3 wickets each which meant the target required to clinch the cup was within reach for the Indians.
India once again comfortably chased down the target with 8 wickets in hand on the back of a beautiful opening century stand between Ravi Shastri and Kris Shrikkanth.
Sunil Gavskar’s Men were ruthless throughout the tournament and this was a clinical feat achieved by a team which was joyous like never before.
CT ’13:
Rain almost played a spoil-sport as it poured down for nearly 5 hours into the scheduled game time. Eventually, heavens cleared and a curtailed game with 20 overs a side against the hosts England was finalized.
Alastair Cook opted to bowl first. With further two rain breaks in the innings, India couldn’t figure out a way to post a respectable total. Ravi Bopara went through the Indian batting by picking 3 crucial wickets as only Shikhar Dhawan managed to bat fluently. Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja gave some impetus to the inning making sure that India posted a total of 129 on a pitch that went slow and turning due to the rain.
England for some reason went into panic mode on that strange pitch as they lost wickets at regular intervals. But a gritty partnership from Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara brought down the equation to 20 required of 16 balls with 6 wickets in hand.
At this stage, in what seemed like a magical turnaround, England lost 4 wickets for 3 runs. Jadeja and Ashwin bowled the last two overs and defended the target.
One still wonders how this happens with MS Dhoni every time in a big game. But maybe, this is the ‘Midas Touch’ everyone spoke about. Ishant Sharma was Dhoni’s new Joginder and India defended a mere score of 129 with slip, gully and silly point for spinners against the Englishmen in their own backyard.
Awards: India bags all the honors at the post match ceremony
B&H ’85:
Krishnamachari Shrikkanth was the highest run scorer (238 runs) while Laxman Shivramakrishnan bagged the most wickets (10 wickets).
Ravi Shastri, who contributed in every department, was presented with an Audi for his Man of the Series performance.
CT ’13:
Shikhar Dhawan, with the most runs (363) in the Champions Trophy 2013 received the ‘Golden Bat’ award while Ravindra Jadeja claimed the ‘Golden Ball’ award for leading the wickets tally (12).
Shikhar was also the player of the series for his prolific run throughout the tournament.
Courtesy: ESPN Cricinfo
Scenes: A smiling and a joyous Captain
B&H ’85:
This was Gavaskar’s last match as Indian captain and he had a look of extreme satisfaction all over his face while receiving the trophy. India’s team members jumped into the Audi with the captain taking the driver’s seat at the Melbourne Cricket Ground while Mohinder Amarnath was seen sitting on the boot, pouring champagne into the trophy and drinking it down.
CT ’13:
Dhoni, who had been through a tough time over the last two years was seen celebrating expressively and was jumping with joy after the last ball. Virat Kohli did the ‘Gangnam Style Caribbean’ celebration in front of the Champions board at the photo shoot while the lustful reactions from the Men in Blue for holding the trophy was another scene that will remain etched in the minds of the viewers.
Mood in the Nation: Jubilation once again all around
B&H ’85:
Indian’s were done with the World Cup 1983 victory been termed as a fluke. Arunabha Senagupta aptly sufficed the mood after the 1985 Championship in his writing which read, “The Indian players and public wanted this win for a very specific reason. It was underlined in a ‘Benson & Hedges World Championship Special’ crossword puzzle published in one of the major sports magazines of the country. The clue to 17 across read: “Two world championships mean that the first one was not a —— (5).” Yes, the answer was ‘Fluke’. The Indians had heard it being repeated too loudly, too unkindly and too often that the 1983 World Cup had been a lucky bolt in the blue. They wanted their team to silence the doubters for good. Their heroes could not have done a better job.”
CT ’13:
India winning this trophy had done themselves wonders as the mood in the nation was at peace with people and the media shifting their attention away from the fixing scam rumours. With 3 major ICC Trophies (T20 WC ‘07, ODI WC ’11 and Champions Trophy ’13) in a span of just 6 years, India and MS Dhoni had achieved something that will always be cherished by the nation for the years to come.
