INDIA AT THE CRICKET WORLD CUP - 4 - ANSWERS

 1. A. Glenn Turner

India's victorious campaign in the 1983 World Cup in England wouldn't have been possible had Kapil Dev not rescued his side from the jaws of defeat in their fifth match of the 60-over showpiece event against Zimbabwe at Nevill Ground, Tunbridge Wells on June 18, 1983. Walking in to bat at 9/4, not long after winning the toss for his side, Kapil had a massive rebuilding job on his hands. Sunil Gavaskar, Kris Srikkanth, Mohinder Amarnath, Sandeep Patil were back in the hut. Soon after Kapil’s arrival, Yashpal Sharma was dismissed and out walked Roger Binny at 17/5.

 

 

The first part of the resurrection was on as the two allrounders put on a partnership of 60 runs for the sixth wicket. Then, two more wickets lost in quick succession, followed by another little partnership with Madan Lal. And, when Syed Kirmani walked in at No 9 after departure of Madal Lal at 140, little did anyone could have known what was to follow.

 

Kapil's 126-run partnership with Syed Kirmani saw the crowd running for cover under the barrage of sixes. Of the 126 runs, Kirmani scored 24 runs and remained not-out. Kapil Dev, meanwhile, scored 175 (became the first Indian to score a century in ODIs) of the teams 266 runs, which, among a whole host of fantastic strokes, also saw the famous ‘Natraj’ shot. In response, Zimbabwe bundled out for 235 with fine spells from Lal (3/42) and Binny (2/45) despite resistance from Kevin Curran (father of the trio Tom, Ben and Sam Curran) (73) in the lower order.

 

(Kapil Dev receives the Man of the Match award from Mike Denness for his unbeaten 175)

(Highest ODI score: World record progression)

(Glenn Turner)

In course of his mammoth innings of 175* (16 fours, six sixes), Kapil broke the record of highest individual score in World Cup (also in ODIs) of Glenn Turner of New Zealand who had scored 171* against East Africa in 1975 World Cup. Unfortunately, the epic innings was watched only by those present at the ground on the day and never after, because it was not telecast. The BBC crew, as Indian fans have come to rue for decades now, had four matches to cover but only two channels to show them. They showed two (England v Pakistan and Australia v West Indies) but India vs Zimbabwe and New Zealand vs Sri Lanka didn’t strike anyone as being very important.

2. B. 1992

 

India has qualified for the Semifinals or further on seven occasions (1983 - Champions, 1987 - Semifinals, 1996 - Semifinals, 2003 - Runners-up, 2011 - Champions, 2015 - Semifinals and 2019 - Semifinals) out of the total 12 editions of the Cricket World Cup.

 

(1992 was Kapil Dev's last World Cup)

 

In 1992 World Cup held in Australia and New Zealand, India crashed out of the Tournament with only 2 wins out of the 8 matches in the Group Stage (Round Robin Stage).

 

3. B. Ram Babu Gupta

 

The 1987 World Cup, the first edition of the Cricket World Cup to be held in Indian Subcontinent (in India and Pakistan — the first held outside England) had its final match held in Eden Gardens, Calcutta on Sunday, 8th November, 1987 between Australia and England. In a thrilling contest before a packed 90000-odd audience, England were almost on target (254), before captain Mike Gatting (41 from 45 balls) handed back the initiative with the loss of his wicket to an attempted reverse sweep off the occasional off-spin bowling of Allan Border, a jolt from which his team never recovered and  Australia won by 7 runs to lift their first ever World Cup trophy.

The final also saw Ram Babu Gupta, an Indian umpire adjudicating a World Cup final for the very first time along with Mahboob Shah of Pakistan (also the first umpire from Pakistan to achieve the feat). Gupta stood in 11 Test matches between 1986 and 1988 and 24 ODI games between 1985 and 1990.

 

Gupta also officiated in the famous Chepauk Test in 1988 when legspinner Narendra Hirwani took 16 wickets against West Indies on his debut. Gupta's last international appearance was in a one-dayer in Sharjah in May 1990.

4. A. Stumpy

 

("Googly")

The tradition of having a mascot in ICC World Cup started back in 1996 World Cup with the first mascot called "Googly", a red (though the tournament used white cricket ball) cricket ball with legs and arms, dressed in a helmet, gloves and green pads.

 

("Willow")

The 1999 World Cup saw “Willow”, a white ball with hat on, as its mascot.

 

("Dazzler")

"Dazzler", the mascot of the 2003 World Cup, was one of the most loved mascots in ICC World cups. "Dazzler", a cricket playing zebra, wearing green pads, gloves and a red shirt symbolizing wild life in South Africa had black and white stripes depicting the blend of black and white people in South Africa.

 

("Mello")

"Mello", the mascot of the 2007 World Cup in West Indies was among the most interesting mascots. "Mello", an orange raccoon with a huge bat, stood with legs crossed and tossing a white ball. He was wearing casual Caribbean clothing and had a red ribbon on his light blue shirt to show his support to the spreading HIV epidemic.

 

("Stumpy")

(An elephant holds a bat which reads ‘Stumpy’, the name of the Cricket World Cup 2011 mascot, during the mascot launch for the 2011 Cricket World Cup in Colombo on 2nd August, 2010.)

For the 2011 World Cup held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh,  the mascot, an elephant, was named "Stumpy" after an online selection process that drew proposals from thousands of cricket fans around the world. With 200 days to go before the start of the World Cup 2011, the event mascot’s name was unveiled in a simple ceremony at P Saravanamuttu Stadium in Colombo on 2nd August, 2010 ahead of the third Test between Sri Lanka and India. Incidentally in the 1982 Asian Games, hosted by India, another baby elephant, 'Appu' was chosen as the mascot.

("Stumpy" during the 2011 World Cup Final)

But for the next two editions of the World Cup, Australia and New Zealand in 2015 and England in 2019 have opted against following the trend of having a mascot for the Tournament, preferring to use other methods to engage their younger fans.

5. C. Zimbabwe

 

India went to the 2007 World Cup in West Indies with what was considered a decent World Cup squad, as they had three batsmen who had scored more than 10,000 ODI runs (Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid), world class spin bowlers (Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble), destructive batsmen (Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa and Mahendra Singh Dhoni), and a decent pace bowling attack led by Zaheer Khan.

 

The format of the 2007 World Cup was different from the previous editions - Teams were divided into groups of 4, with the top two teams from each group moving on to the Super Eight stage, where each team would play each other in a round-robin format. In the Group stage, India were placed in Group B, pitted against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and World Cup debutants Bermuda. All of India's Group matches were played at the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

 

India's World Cup campaign started disastrously, as they unexpectedly lost to minnows Bangladesh in their opening match, leaving them with two must-win matches in their group. India next scored 413/5 against Bermuda, the highest team total in a World Cup game winning the lopsided game by 257 runs. But they still needed to beat Sri Lanka in their last group match in order to enter the Super Eight stage.

 

The match against Sri Lanka on 23 March 2007 turned out to be a one-sided contest. Chasing 255, the Indian batting crumbled against the Sri Lankan bowling attack with off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan and pace bowler Chaminda Vaas taking 2/39 and 3/41 respectively, crashing to 185 all out in the 44th over. Only Dravid (60 from 82 balls, 6 fours) and Sehwag (48 from 46 balls, 5 fours and 1 six) made any significant contribution for India. With one victory and two losses, India's hopes of entering the Super Eight stage were now grim and depended on a Bermuda victory over Bangladesh by a heavy margin in the last Group B match. But with Bangladesh beating Bermuda, India crashed out of the World Cup in the first round, the first time since 1992.

 

(Police stand guard outside Rahul Dravid’s house)

After the debacle, Kumble retired from ODI cricket, while coach Greg Chappell resigned after reports that none of the senior players, including Tendulkar, were happy with him and his coaching methods. However, Dravid retained the captaincy. There were several attacks on players homes and protests by infuriated fans, especially in Bangalore and Mumbai.