While the nation is still aglow following the triumph of the Indian team at the ICC Women’s World Cup (50 overs) at Navi Mumbai on Nov 2-the first world team title in any sport for our sportswomen-comparisons have been inevitably and unfortunately drawn with the men’s maiden triumph in the 1983 Prudential World Cup in England.
The phrase “comparisons are odious” may be too strong a term, but they are certainly woefully inaccurate and misleading in this particular case. For, in a nutshell, Kapil Dev’s men, by stunning twice-world champions and holders West Indies in the final at Lord’s, turned the world of cricket upside down and completely changed its structure at both the national and international levels. If today Indian cricket, under the umbrella of the omnipotent Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), rules the world of cricket and has an iron grip on the International Cricket Council (ICC) as well, it is in no small measure thanks to the ‘Miracle at Lord’s’.
After hosting the first three World Cups in 1975, 1979, and 1983, sponsored by the Prudential Insurance Company, the Test and County Cricket Board, now the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), had the rug pulled from under their feet when India and Pakistan won the rights to stage the 1987 (Reliance) World Cup. And in 1996, it returned to the subcontinent with India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as co-hosts in the face of fierce and furious opposition from the TCCB. With Kolkata’s Jagmohan Dalmiya taking over as president of the ICC in 1997 and the scrapping of the obnoxious veto rule held since the birth of the ICC (then the Imperial Cricket Conference) in 1909 by founding members England and Australia, the transformation of world cricket was complete.
Till ‘Kapil’s Dev-ils’, as they came to be known, snatched the cup from the firm grasp of West Indies’ Clive Lloyd, the winning captain in 1975 and 1979, the BCCI had barely bothered with ODIs. Since the inception of the format at the international level in 1971, India had only twice hosted the ODI series at home, vs England in 1980-81 and vs Sri Lanka in 1982-83.
The Indian players themselves hardly took the format seriously either. In both the first two editions, they emerged with egg on their collective faces. It was not till they defeated the West Indies by 27 runs in the second ODI at the Albion ground in Berbice, Guyana, on March 29, 1983-just three months before the Lord’s final-that the cricket world began to sit up and take notice. Even then, the team had booked tickets to play exhibition matches in the United States, which were to be staged before the semifinals. Imagine their shock then when they beat hosts England in the semifinals to make it to Lord’s!
The 14-member team had exactly one official accompanying them, administrative manager PR Man Singh of Hyderabad-no coach, no physio, nothing. By contrast, the 2025 women’s winning squad had support staff of multiple coaches, nutritionists, physios, et al., far outnumbering the playing members, identical to men’s squads of the past twenty years or so, which is how it should be. Reportedly, the 1983 team carried just one bat each with them, not the bulging, sponsored kitbags of today’s generation. Accommodation was spartan and allowances meagre, forcing the players to scrounge around for meals, latching on to the local Indian communities for much-craved-for (and free) home-cooked “khaana” and washing their own clothes to save on laundry bills.
With women’s cricket coming under the aegis of the BCCI in 2006, as per the directive of the ICC, their salary is today on par with the men’s, and so are the facilities. Tales of hardship of the pioneers of the women’s game in the 1970s are legion and worn like a badge of honour by the veterans. But it was no bed of roses for the Indian men either. Miserable daily allowances (known as ‘smoke money’) doled out grudgingly by the local managers, substandard, even primitive, living conditions, unreserved train travel by ‘cattle class’ and shoddy clothing and equipment-all these and more were the lot of Indian male cricketers till things began to look up from 1983 onwards.
The real turning point for finances in Indian cricket came in 1993-94, thanks to the efforts of Dalmiya and IS Bindra, who together, backed by the Supreme Court, wrested the TV rights from the state-controlled Doordarshan and sold them to the highest private bidders. Taking on the might of the government monopoly back then was a monumental task and a noted triumph. The 1996 Wills World Cup saw the TV rights sold for what were then astronomical sums, and world cricket was never the same again. Till then the BCCI faced the galling situation where they had to pay the DD for the “honour” of telecasting international matches.
In contrast with the no-hopers of 1983, Indian women had twice lost in the final of the World Cup before 2025: to Australia, in South Africa, in 2007, and to England, in England, in 2017. They were, thus, one of the leading contenders for the title on their home turf. Of course, the women have had to overcome the massive hurdle of sexism, and here it was current captain Harmanpreet Kaur with her barnstorming 171 against Australia at Derby in the semifinal of the 2017 edition that finally convinced the sceptics. Even as late as 1999, a leading male player told me in an interview that he did not believe girls should play cricket. That wall of patriarchy has now well and truly crumbled, and cricket is the richer for it. After all, women have been playing the ‘gentleman’s game’-a misnomer in more ways than one-since the mid-1700s. But it was not till that 1983 miracle that Indian cricket well and truly came of age-all thanks to the unheralded and unsung ‘Kapil’s Dev-ils’!
Gulu Ezekiel’s latest book is Plucky 13: The Stories Behind Ranji Trophy’s Multi-title Winning Teams (Sachin Bajaj/GCS Publishers)