never gave up, never stopped hoping.
Indian cricket went through two quantum
jumps, one at the beginning of the 1970s and one
just after the end of the decade. The unexpected
series wins in the West Indies and then England
in 1970-71 meant that expectations of the Indian
fans went up—we could win Test series, we will
keep winning; forget about counting staved off
defeats as substitute victories. 1983 meant some-
thing quite else—we could win even in this format
that was, till now, challenging for our slow-scor-
ing batsmen, Test-designed bowlers and sluggish
fielders. Earlier, we had won the odd series here
and there, most often at home, but this was a
World Cup where, in theory, we had been proven
superior to every other cricket-playing countrythe west of the subcontinent. If the jute factories stayed in West
Bengal and the jute fields supplying to those factories went to
East Pakistan, people still argue that a bulk of the batting talent
stayed in India while almost the entire pace attack went to West
Pakistan. While this may be a gross simplification, the fact was
that Partition scattered things unevenly across India and the
two Pakistans.
Just as notions of patriotism had to be rejigged, being a
supporter of the Indian team meant different things before and
after August 1947. For our Test team, the multiple humiliations
and honourable draws we suffered in the first 20-odd years of
Independence were accompanied by the spread of the radio
network. The live cricket commentary coming in from grounds
across the world where India were playing left slight scars across
the addicted eardrums of Indian cricket fans who grew up in the
1950s and the 1960s, and yet the patriot-cum-cricket fan in usIllustration by
RAJ VERMA