The seeds of the Big Three

 It has been forty years since we won the World Cup. Many things have happened in cricket since.Test match attendance have come down.ODIs blossomed and peaked but have now been over taken by t20.There are players who are free agents not often available for their region or country( think Sunil Narine) but visible almost all year round from Port of Spain to Port Elizabeth.And India has lived up to Ashish Nandy's formulation of cricket being an Indian sport accidently discovered in England.Indian viewership largely runs the sport.And the concept of Big three has evolved who have given new vigour to test match rivalry.All this owes to that win at Lord's and another win in a different format in South Africa in 2007.

India wins cricket itself.

 It has been 40 years since that day Mike Brearly handed over the cup to Kapil Dev.Like the day 1953, when football arguably replaced cricket as Engish papers' favourite sport, this day can be ascribed as the day Indian eyeballs started ruling the cricket world.Though it would be a few years before Dalmia made cricket an Indian enterprise, so much so that I would not be surprised if the Indian viewership of the first Ashes Test outstripped the viewership of SKY, Fox and Kayo put together. 

 For those of who had seen India win only one match in the World Cup( vs East Africa in 1975), the win against the West Indies at Manchester itself was a satisfying outcome in a rain delayed match which ended on the second day not without a late scare caused by Roberts and Garner with 30s each.From then we lived match to match.Drubbing against Australia, a five wicket win against Zimbabwe, who had given us a cushion by defeating Australia in first game defending 239.The second round had that 175 not out at Tunbridge Wells.So exhilarating was the win that we almost returned the favour against Australia at Chelmsford, two days later winning by 118 runs.We bought our chicken that day from a place called Essex farms, even as India was playing at the Essex county ground.We did not think of it that way then but thinking today it looks as if we did it by design.After that we thought the performance was good enough for a team which lost more often than win.The two wins and the cup was as joyous as could be and looking back, a paraphrase of Wordsworth's memory of French revolution looks appropriate: Joy it was on that day to be alive and winning was the very heaven.