Former India stumper Kiran More’s greatest regret is that India could not retain the World Cup played at home in 1987. After a narrow one-run loss to Australia at Chepauk, India went on to win five matches against New Zealand (Bangalore), Zimbabwe (Mumbai), Australia (Delhi), Zimbabwe (Ahmedabad), New Zealand (Nagpur) before England’s Graham Gooch (115, 136b, 11x4s) made capital of the sweep shot against the two left-arm spinners Maninder Singh and Ravi Shastri and helped his team post 254 which turned out to be a winning one with India shot out for 219.
“Yes, I remember the Goochy sweep shots in the semifinal, but overall we played a superb World Cup. We won five matches in a row. We thought we had a great chance to win against England, but definitely Gooch came with a great idea sweeping the left-arm spinners all the time. We missed a couple of chances; when you play big games in big tournaments, you have to take those catches to win matches. We played the last fifteen overs of that match very poorly.
“We missed the bus in 1987; we had a fantastic opportunity after 1983 to retain the World Cup. We had an outstanding combination; an excellent seam attack (Kapil Dev, Manoj Prabhakar and Chetan Sharma) and spinners (Maninder and Shastri) and a home ground like the Wankhede Stadium. The wicket was actually tailor-made for us. But it went the other way.”
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More said that India expected Gooch to play the sweep shot, but not to the extent he employed it. “We never thought Gooch would resort to all out sweep shots. We had plan ‘A’ in place, but not plan ‘B’. I thought we were short on thinking when Goochy started sweeping the ball. One can only give credit to Goochy for outsmarting India. It only showed the class of the player and the plan he came up with. Perhaps the spinners could have bowled better and we should not have allowed England to score even 200.”
Chasing the target India was well placed at 168 for four, before Kapil Dev departed. “We could have still won, but we played the last 10 or 15 overs very poorly. We played too many loose shots. Full marks to England, especially its spinners (John Emburey and Eddie Hemmings),” said More.
There was much chaos as India began to prepare for the competition and as More said: “We started with a camp in Udaipur; it turned out to be a disaster. The camp was shifted to Delhi overnight. Thanks to the senior players who pushed hard to change the venue to Delhi. The players were happy with the facilities (practice pitches) there. The pitches were very poor in Udaipur. The planning was quite good, it was meant to keep the team away from much attention, but the pitches were not ready. They were too soft and the ball was jumping, turning and then they put the matting on which I will never forget.”
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The Baroda wicket-keeper recalled two more events in which he was involved. “I will not forget my partnership with Kapil Dev against New Zealand at Bangalore. I got 42 off 28 balls and kept telling ‘Paaji’ that I will give him one’s and two’s, both agreed and I kept hitting boundary shots (5x4s) and then kept looking at Kapil. The best part was when Kapil said: “ Beta thu khelthe ja, maarthe re .” What an innings Kapil played, 78 off 58 balls.”
“I also remember the match against Australia at Chennai. That city always gave me butterflies because of the tied Test against Australia. I was the non-striker in the World Cup match and remained not out on 12. I thought one more strike and I could have won the match. But the Aussies, they don’t give up. Do they.”