Kapil Dev's Majestic Knock of 175*
Sometimes a match is remembered for an individual performance. Kapil Dev's majestic knock of 175* against Zimbabwe at Tent bridge was once such knock. Unfortunaetly, one of the best ODI inning ever played was not being able to be caputred in camera because of a strike by BBC technical workers. The importance of this inning was such that it not only helped India to won the match but also gave them the confidence to win the Cup.
India won the toss and elected to bat first. To everyone's surprize, Indian batting crumbled against minnows Zimbabwe and were 9/4 when Captain Kapil Dev came on the pitch. Soon India were 17/5. The match was totally in control of Zimbabwe who had already surprized everyone with a stunning victory against powerful Australia and were once again ready for another upset.
With all the big guns - Sunil Gavaskar, Kris Srikkant, Yashpal Sharma, Sandeip Patil, Mohinder Amarnath gone, Skipper Kapil Dev was battling on the pitch. A win in this match was the ticket to the semi-final. Zimbabwe's bowlers exploited the pitch and all of a sudden started looking like the best bowling attack with Rawson and Curren making mockery of Indian batting.
Kapil along with Roger Binny put a break on the wickets. They added 60 runs before Binny (22) was trapped LBW by Traicos. Ravi Shastri was next to go adding just 1 run to the scoreboard. India was on the backfoot once again. Madan Lal added 62 runs with Kapil and showed some resistance before he bacame another victim of Curran. With 140/8, wicket-keeper batsman Syed Kirmani joined his Skipper. Kapil Dev played the most incredible innings of his career.
Remembering the match, Syed Kirmani said in an interview, "When I walked into batafter the fall of Madan Lal’s wicket, I told Kaps, ‘You just play your natural game” to which he said, ‘Humko 60 overs khelna hai’. I told him that I would try my best to hold one end up.”
Both of them took the charge; while Kirmani played the role of a sheet-anchor, Kapil played his natural game and scored an unbeaten 175 from just 138 balls comprising of 16 fours and 6 sixes. From 17/5, India reached to 266/8 in 60 overs. Kapil alone scored around 66% runs in Indian innings.
Indian bowlers defended the total well with Madan Lal(3/42) and Roger Binny (2/45) leading the attack. Kapil bowled economically and picked 1 wicket by just conceding 32 runs in his 11 overs. That victory gave the team that much needed extra strength in coming important matches and India emerged as the world Champion.
I wasn't tired... I think the happiness takes over the tiredness, whatever you get. You are so happy that you performed so well.. you got 100 and odd runs when the team is down - Kapil Dev (when asked whether he was tired after that match)
The inning has been talked about a lot and its perhaps one of the best innings to be played in ODI.
When you had lost half of your side with less than 20 runs on the board, obviously it was not looking good. But this gentleman (Kapil Dev) went out and played his innings. That 175 has to be in my view the greatest knock in the World Cup," - Sunil Gavaskar
Sahir