Cup of joy
First win abroad
Auckland, March 1968
The third decade after Independence marked hockey's decline and cricket's rise. Fittingly enough, it was Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi under whom India's first cricket series win abroad was achieved, in New Zealand. All four Tests produced a winner, and India took the rubber 3-1. The same year, India failed to reach the final of the hockey event in the Olympic Games for the first time ever. This started hockey's decline which proved impossible to arrest.
Wrestling champs
Edinburgh, July 1970
India was the top nation at the 1970 Commonwealth Games, with five gold, three silver and one bronze. The most loved of the Indian wrestlers was Ved Prakash, winner in light flyweight category, for he was only 14 years old. At the Asian Games the same year, the competition was much tougher - only the legendary Chandgi Ram managed to win gold for India there.
Davis glory lost
Pune, Sept 1974
Powered by the Amritraj brothers, Vijay and Anand, India made the Davis Cup final for the second time. India beat a strong Australia in the Eastern Zone final in Calcutta, and then drubbed the USSR at Pune to reach the final round. The Amritraj brothers figured in all four matches against the USSR, and India locked the rubber when Anand won the first reverse singles. Sadly, the other finalist were South Africa, and India had no sporting relations with that nation due to its policy of apartheid - India, unsurprisingly, refused to play them in the final.
Prakash burns bright
London, March 1980
Prakash Padukone first made his mark in 1971 with a remarkable feat, when he won both junior and senior National badminton titles. Padukone was the supreme Indian badminton player, winning the national title nine years in a row, plus a bronze at the Asian Games in Teheran in 1974. He also won the gold at the 1978 Commonwealth Games, but his biggest feat was winning the coveted All-England title in 1980, beating the great Liem Swie King in the final.
Kapil's Devils
London, June 1983
This was the year that changed cricket and Indian sport for good. India's first two World Cups were very forgettable, with only one win, that too against East Africa in 1975. In 1983, no one expected India to do anything remarkable. But it was a different team, packed with strokeplayers and all-rounders, led by the great Kapil Dev. India beat West Indies in the preliminary stage, beat England in the semifinals, and set up the final with West Indies. On June 25, 1983, the unthinkable happened. India, bowled out for 183, dismissed West Indies for 140 to become the world champs, and cricket took off in the real sense.
World champs!
West Indies, England 1971
There were no 'world' champions in cricket then, but India were considered the world's top team in 1971 when they recorded historic wins in the West Indies and England. India won 1-0 in West Indies, in no small part due to the exploits of the first Little Master, Sunil Gavaskar, who had a series tally of 774 runs. The spin quartet of Erapalli Prasanna, Bishan Singh Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and S Venkataraghavan proved to be the match-winners because they had runs to bowl to. India beat England 1-0 in the summer, with the trio of Chandrasekhar, Bedi and Venkataraghavan taking 37 English wickets in three Tests. Chandrasekhar was the hero of the win at the Oval with 6/38 in the second innings.
Olympics gold
Moscow, July 1980
India won the hockey gold medal at the 1980 Olympic Games, the first Olympics gold after 1964, but the title seemed devalued. The medallists from the 1976 Olympics - New Zealand, Australia and Pakistan - were absent due to the US-led boycott. West Germany, Holland and Great Britain also did not compete. India had a field day in the group stage, before beating Spain 4-3 in a thrilling final.
Fast man
Faisalabad, Oct 1977
Kapil Dev, a natural athlete, was surprisingly quick for an Indian pace bowler - in his debut Test, he made the Pakistani batsmen ask for the helmet. This had never happened before. India lost the Test series 0-2 and the country's great spinners were destroyed by Pakistan's batsmen. The saving grace was the emergence of Kapil Dev as a pace bowler and, indeed, an all-rounder, as evidenced by his 33-ball half-century in the Karachi Test.
Last hurrah in hockey
Kuala Lumpur, March 1975
After finishing third and second in the first two hockey World Cups, India triumphed in 1975. In the league stage, India beat England, Ghana and Germany, drew with Australia and lost to Argentina. In the semifinal, interrupted by torrential showers, India beat Malaysia in extra time to reach the final against Pakistan. Pakistan got the first goal through inside-right Zahid before Surjeet Singh equalised in the 25th minute. Then, after a goalmouth melee, Ashok Kumar slammed the ball in, scoring the final goal of the match. The whole nation celebrated, hoping that India would achieve great heights once again.
World's best
Melbourne, Nov 1977
Michael Ferreira was the country's dominant billiards player for several years before he finally triumphed at the world stage in 1977, when he won the World Amateur Billiards Championship in Melbourne by beating Bob Close in the final. Later that year, Ferreira took the World Open Billiards Championship title at Christchurch. In December 1978, he became the first amateur to break the 1000-point barrier.
Asian Games in Delhi
Delhi, Nov-Dec 1982
The Asian Games returned to Delhi after a gap of 31 years, and the nation's largest sporting event proved a huge success. China topped the medals tally with 153, 61 of them bronze. India was fifth with 13 gold medals. In the most awaited contest of the event, India took on Pakistan in the hockey final. It turned out to be a no-contest, Pakistan winning 7-1, their biggest win over India.
Heartbreak in LA
Los Angeles, Aug 1984
Another what-if story for India at the Olympic Games - running in the fifth lane of the women's 400m hurdles final, PT Usha finished fourth, missing the bonze by 1/100th of a second. Two years later, at the Seoul Asian Games in 1986, Usha won four of the five gold won by India in the event.
Other achievements
- 1979: Sunil Gavaskar became the first batsmen from the Indian Subcontinent to reach the milestone of 5,000 runs in Test cricket
- 1982: India won a gold in the team event of the golf competition at the Asian Games in New Delhi
- 1984: Viswanathan Anand became an International Master at age 14, and set out on a remarkable career in chess
- 1984-85: Mohammad Azharuddin made three centuries in his first three Tests against England
- 1985: India won the World Championship of Cricket in Australia, beating Pakistan in the final
- 1986: Led by Kapil Dev and with fine performances by Dilip Vengsarkar, India beat England 2-0 in the cricket Test series
- 1985: Geet Sethi won the 1985 World Amateur Billiards Championship, beating the 74-year old Bob Marshal in the final
- 1986: Sandhya Agarwal piled up 190 against England in a Test match Worcester. It was a new world record for the highest score in women's cricket
