SUNDAY POST FEB 8-14
COVER STORY
Battles are fought in the field, but off them too a lot of things happen. These behind-the-curtain incidents remain embedded in memory long after the battles have been fought and won. SAKYASEN MITTRA takes a walk down World Cup memory lane
‘Jockey’, as More used to be called by his mates, hit the first delivery for a boundary. Trying a paddle sweep down the leg side in his next he lost his middle stump and with it India’s hope for qualifying for the knock out stage was extinguished. After his dismissal both Manoj Prabhakar and Venkatpathi Raju failed to trouble the scorers and India lost the game by three runs.
Even after a decade of that game, More frequently called it the ‘worst moment’ of his cricketing career. With the 11th edition of the Cup drawing closer, More, somewhere in his Vadodara residence, must be in a flashback mode reliving the horror that hit him after he lost his stumps. “It was me, solely responsible for India losing that game,” used to be his self-explanatory comment.
It is these moments of madness or greatness that change the fate of the game. And the World Cup is full of such stories. Just before the 2003 final between India and Australia, pacer Zaheer Khan was clearly in an agitated mood pacing up and down the dressing room. Skipper Sourav Ganguly tried his best, but could not cool down the left-arm fast bowler.
“He was very restless. The calm and composed demeanour had vanished. And when Matthew Hayden used some expletives in the opening over of the match, Zak (as Zaheer is popularly known) completely lost it. And with it our hopes of winning the Cup disappeared,” Sourav recently stated in Kolkata during a ‘cricket adda’.
“India benefitted from the fact that when they played the 2011 final, there were quite a few cricketers in the team who had played in the 2003 final. Cricketers like Viru (Virender Sehwag), Yuvi (Yuvraj Singh), Zak and Bhajji (Harbhajan Singh). The experience of playing a final helped India tremendously,” Sourav added.
The World Cup is replete with off the field stories too. If the manager of the 1983 World Cup, the late Maan Singh of Hyderabad had been alive he would have had many stories to tell. People remember Sunil Gavaskar lifting Kapil Dev’s arms on the Lord’s balcony. Very few however, know that had it not been for Maan, such a scene would have never materialised. The Indian dressing room in 1983 was not a very good place to be in. There was a distinct rift between the North and West lobbies which led to Gavaskar being dropped from two games. The short-statured Maan who carried a very wise head on his frail shoulders would have everyone in splits when he narrated some of the amusing anecdotes of the ’83 event. “Kapil came into a team meeting and straightaway in his Haryanvi style said, ‘Sunny when you will get some runs?
“He had become extremely agitated and as a manager I had something to do. So I told him ‘Look he (Kapil) doesn’t know English properly so just let it be. Forget it. You know how people from the North are’. I was telling this to Sunny but at the same time was very careful lest Kapil came to know about my comments. It indeed took a huge effort to keep the team together,” he added.
Very few people know the name of Mike Veleta. This Australian middle-order batsman played a crucial knock in the 1987 World Cup final against England scoring an unbeaten 45 off just 31 deliveries. The story goes that just before going in to bat, he found his willow missing. With no time to search for it, he picked up Geoff Marsh’s bat and smashed the England bowlers. Later on, it transpired that his entire kit had been stolen from the Eden Gardens dressing room. But then in the aftermath of the victory celebrations he forgot about it as he was doused in champagne.
The coolest among all the skippers to have played the World Cup is no doubt Arjuna Ranatunga. Ever-smiling, ever-courteous, this portly man redefined ODI captaincy. “I realised that to win the World Cup I had to do something unconventional. That is why I went for the concept of pinch-hitters with Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana at the top of the order. It paid off,” Ranatunga stated a few years back. 
The man had outstanding cricket knowledge and an even better sense of man management. Managing Aravinda de Silva was not an easy task for sure. But then in Sri Lanka people say that there only two people that De Silva listens to. Arjuna and his mom – and in that order. Ranatunga was fun to be with. He always cracked jokes at his own portliness and managed to keep the team together because he was always ready to share the riches. He was a star in his own right, but saw to it that if he got a sponsorship deal worth $15,000, then the entire team benefitted through it.
The World Cup and Sachin Tendulkar – the two would still have been inseparable had not the ‘Sach’ of Indian cricket retired. He played six World Cups and was always leading India’s charge. But more than his batting there are two incidents that will forever be etched in the memory of people who have seen him from up close. In 1999, Sachin returned from his father’s funeral and scored an unbeaten century against Kenya (in the same match Debashis Mohanty took four wickets). But that emotional moment when Sachin looked up at the sky after he reached the three-figure mark brought tears in the eyes of many – his teammates, journalists and spectators present at the Bristol ground. It was, and is, a moment that will forever haunt those who were present at the venue. On that day happy smiles were engulfed by tears tinged with sadness.
The second one was during the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. India lost to Sri Lanka at Port of Spain and were knocked out of the event. Sachin failed, he scored a three-ball duck. At that point, his elbow and other injuries were taking a toll on him. He thought that his dream of winning the Cup had been a mere dream.
The man did not even open his India jersey after coming back to the hotel. He just lay in his room, staring blankly at the ceiling and did not sleep the next 24 hours. “We had never seen Sachin like this. In cricket you win matches and you lose matches. But that day for Sachin was as if the world had come to an end. It was as if a catastrophe had struck him,” Sourav disclosed once in Kolkata during an informal chat. “Being the leading batsman of the side, Sachin always blamed himself if India lost a game.”
Everyone remembers the high-voltage India-Pakistan encounter at Bangalore, a match that India won convincingly. Sledging was rampant during the game and Aamir Sohail after hitting Venkatesh Prasad for a boundary pointed to the ropes and after uttering a few expletives told the bowler, “I am going to hit you there all through the day.”
Next ball, Prasad sent Sohail’s stumps cartwheeling and had some of the choicest Hindi slangs to offer to the batsman. “We were in peals,” stated Ajay Jadeja recently. “Cricketers from the South are normally decent and rarely use Hindi galis. But Venky didn’t seem he was keen to stop. We were surprised that he had such a vast stock.” Mohammed Azharuddin captained India in three World Cups, but could never build a deep bond with his teammates. Azhar was aloof and always kept to himself, or else mixed with a coterie of people. Not a great communicator, Azhar always felt that Indian cricketers were adults and they knew what to do. And many couldn’t forget his decision to bowl first on the Eden Garden’s track in 1996 – a decision that backfired on India.
The then curator, this writer’s father, had literally begged Azhar not to bat second. But the captain neither heeded that advice nor those offered by the team management consisting of Ajit Wadekar and Sandeep Patil. It was a decision that led to violence at the venue and one distinctly remembers the pitiable picture of a weeping disconsolate Vinod Kambli refusing to leave the ground.
Memories linger; they don’t go away while new ones pile up with the arrival of another edition of the tourney. Hope this World Cup gives us something to cherish about, something to remember like Mahendra Singh Dhoni hitting the winning six at the Wankhede Stadium four years ago.