Throughout its 83-year history, the Indian Cricket Team has made a lot of stunning comebacks from a position when it looked like it was all over for them. To explain this, I’ll quote two examples:
–> India vs South Africa 1st SF, Colombo – ICC Champions Trophy 2002
While a chasing a target of 262, South Africa were well placed at 191/1 in 38 overs. Riding on the brilliant spell from Harbhajan Singh, Virender Sehwag and a stunning catch from Yuvraj Singh to get rid of Jonty Rhodes, India defeated South Africa by 10 runs to progress to the finals. Amazing that is!
–> India vs Australia 2nd Test, 2001 – Kolkata
Australia scored 445 in the first innings and enforced the follow-on on India after bowling them out for 171. Stylish batsman VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid then probably played the innings of their career as their well stitched partnership of 376 runs helped India post a humongous total of 657, setting Australia a target of 384 runs. Laxman recorded his career best scored of 281 whereas Dravid played an awe-inspiring innings of 180 as India defeated Australia by 171 runs. Flabbergasting display by India and truly inspiring!
Going by these examples, let us take a look at one of their historic comebacks that took place during the 1983 World Cup:
In a World Cup, all matches are crucial and if a team loses any one then the pressure gets back to them in this high voltage tournament. The same would have been the case with team India had Kapil Dev not played that memorable innings against Zimbabwe.
After electing to bat on a seaming wicket at Tunbridge Wells, India were off to a pathetic start as Peter Rawson and Kevin Curran ran through their top-order as India lost their top five batsman for a mere 17 runs. Openers Sunil Gavaskar and Kris Srikkanth even failed to open their account as India faced the danger of being rattled out for under hundred. But skipper Kapil Dev had different plans and when he came out to bat, he proved the same. With much need support from Roger Binny, Madan Lal and wicket-keeper batsman Syed Kirmani, Kapil hit his career best 175 off just 138 balls with 16 fours and 6 sixes and guided the team’s total to 266/8 in 60 overs. He put on:
–> A 60-run partnership with Binny for sixth wicket.
–> A 62-run partnership with Madan Lal for the eighth wicket, and
–> An unbeaten 126-run partnership with Kirmani for the ninth wicket. Out of these 248 runs, the trio of Binny, Madan Lal and Kirmani accounted for just 63 runs and 12 were extras (means Kapil scored 173 and in his 8-run partnership with Yashpal Sharma, he hit 2 runs which makes it 175).
Kapil’s magnificient display boosted the team’s morale to a great extent as lead by a good bowling display from Binny and Madan Lal, India defeated Zimbabwe 31 runs.
Here is the scorecard of the match:
India’s Innings:
Zimbabwe’s Innings:
This comeback probably goes down as one of the most historic comebacks in India’s Cricket History and it can be said that this match made believe that they have the ability to lift the glory and rightly so on June 25, 1983, India beat West Indies by 43 runs in the final of the World Cup to become the first Asian team to win the gold.
Scorecard Courtesy: espncricinfo