India is celebrating the 37th anniversary of the 1983 World Cup win- a win which in many ways changed the way people looked at the sport and took the game into the position that it enjoys today. What the Indian team led by Kapil Dev manage to achieve in 83′ is termed by most cricketing experts as an ‘upset’ but Dev revealed the mantra of the team to be- ‘living in the moment and taking it ball by ball.’
Did the team have any idea that it would win the world cup and come back to a warm reception?
“You can’t think that. Can you think today what would happen a couple of weeks later? We just did our work, took it one game at a time and things kept on changing. Eventually, we managed to beat West Indies in the final and win the World Cup,” Kapil Dev told The Statesman in an exclusive chat.
The 61-year-old then explained why the team actually did not have much to say or do when they arrived back in India after being crowned the World Champions.
“Everybody was enjoying themselves. When you see so many happy faces around you, you don’t have to say much. There was happiness all around us. There were smiles all around. I, for one, never expected that people would be so involved with the World Cup because we were not in touch with the people and were busy playing our game,” the Haryana Hurricane said.