This world cup, that world cup !

Before 2 April 2011, India had just one moment of true glory in the world of cricket..and that was the 1983 ICC-Prudential world cup victory- at Lord's. Will this recent triumph overshadow the earlier one? I hope not. In 1983, India played as the underdogs, and the victory over the hot favorites West Indies in the final was indeed exhilarating. In the early eighties, cricket as a game was followed in the country, but not yet at the level of madness. That victory brought madness to the fans of the game in India; that victory brought out the desire in the likes of the then young Sachin to pursue the game; that victory had made him want to play for India and win another world cup. And after playing 21 years of international cricket, Sachin Tendulkar repeated the feat for India, making his own dream come true. So I hope the dazzle of the recent victory does not dilute the sense of triumph brought by the first one ever; I hope the media-men do not forget to bring out the Kapil Devs and the Roger Binnys out of the closet every four years to take us down the memory lane with them. Every one of us has probably heard how Kapil Dev felt while lifting up the trophy that year, but still we want to hear it all over again; we all know that game almost ball-by-ball, but we still want to know how Mohinder Amarnath felt on being the man of that match; we all have heard hundreds of times how difficult a catch was the one that dismissed Viv Richards, but we want to hear about it just one more time.. I would never want those sepia images of Kapil dev's men posing with the trophy to fade away from my mind because I owe my love for cricket to those cricketing heroes of our country, because I owe my first moment of true cricketing glory to them...