IS THIS THE WINNING COMBO?
By Akshay A. Kalbag
For the last 23 years, the status of World Cup champions has eluded India, even though we’ve been among the top teams in One-day Internationals and had some spectacular success at the premier event. On June 25, 1983, the then Indian captain Kapil Dev surprised the world and stunned the then defending champions, the West Indies (led by Clive Lloyd), by 43 runs in the final and proudly held aloft the Prudential World Cup trophy on the Lord’s balcony in England. This was the only time India won the tournament. However, two decades later, the Men in Blue, led by Sourav Ganguly, made it to the final in Johannesburg, South Africa, only to lose to Ricky Ponting’s all-conqering Australians by a huge margin of 125 runs. Without the aggressive leadership of Ganguly, who has fallen out of favour with the Indian selectors since then, does the incumbent combination of coach Greg Chappell and captain Rahul Dravid have it in them to inspire Team India to emulate the feat of Kapil’s Devils? Next year’s World Cup is in the West Indies, where India recently lost the One–day series 1-4 to a buoyant and young West Indies side led by veteran Brian Lara. The question on every Indian cricket aficionado’s mind now is: Is this the team that will bring us back the coveted trophy in 2007? This question will only be answered when India travels to the Caribbean islands in March next year to participate in the World Cup.
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