Just as the arc-lights streak towards Australia and New Zealand thanks to the World Cup, a legendary off-spinner gets nostalgic over a milestone that Indian cricket etched Down Under in 1985.
That was the year in which India won the Benson and Hedges World Championship of Cricket after defeating Pakistan in the final at Melbourne. To this date, it remains the only significant global title that India clinched during its tours of Australia.
For E.A.S. Prasanna, manager of the Indian team then, those were glory days when a squad that hardly elicited any attention, trumped the odds, silenced the cynics and won the silverware that mattered. Add to it Ravi Shastri’s coronation as ‘Champion of Champions’ and the feel-good story is complete.
While India gears up for its Sunday game against Pakistan at Adelaide, on match-eve, Prasanna looked back at 1985 and also evaluated the current outfit’s prospects. The first point that crops up in Prasanna’s mind is the tremendous synergy he shared with skipper Sunil Gavaskar, a fact that the latter also reiterated in his book One Day Wonders .
Multiple roles Looking back, Prasanna says: “I was playing multiple roles — manager, supervisor at nets, sharing inputs with Sunny… I multi-tasked and those were days when we didn’t have a coach. The most important point is that Sunny was receptive to my suggestions.”
Elaborating upon the team’s strengths, Prasanna says: “When we landed, the media asked me about the team and I did say that we are a deceptively strong team, we may not look ferocious or strong on paper but it was a well-rounded team. We had all-rounders like the great Kapil Dev, Ravi (Shastri), Roger Binny, Madan Lal and Mohinder Amarnath. We had great batsmen like Sunny, K. Srikkanth, Dilip Vengsarkar and Mohammad Azharuddin and we had good spinners in Ravi and L. Sivaramakrishnan.”
Soft spot Always nursing a soft spot for spin, Prasanna says: “The best thing was I could bowl in the nets along with Ravi and Siva. I made them focus on attaining a certain length and then turn the ball. Siva had natural talent but he lacked experience and I shared many tips with him, I helped Ravi too and both bowled well through out the tournament.”
Reverting his glance to M.S. Dhoni’s men, Prasanna explains: “Back then we got all ten wickets except in the final when Pakistan scored about 170 odd for nine (176 for nine) and we always had an achievable target to tackle. I feel this team can win games if it can restrict rivals to around 260-odd but if it gets to 300-plus, then it will be difficult. My biggest disappointment with this bowling unit, especially the spinners is that they all get the ball in and we don’t have a leg-spinner, who can take it away. That can affect us.”
There is a link between 1985 and 2015 as the hero then — Shastri — is now the team’s director. Perhaps, he may have already shared his anecdotes with the Virat Kohlis and the Suresh Rainas. And from Bengaluru, Prasanna will watch, hoping that the high-point of the mid 1980s would be relived all over again.
