Guest Spot

April is here again, which can only mean one thing. The nerves, the excitement, the aching muscles, the freshly cut grass - and the rain. Another cricket season has arrived, bringing with it a unique stew of emotions that can only be properly understood by the journeyman village cricketer.

Such a creature spends his life in a constantly shifting state. The moment stumps are pulled on the final day of the season in September, he retreats into hibernation. Christmas comes and goes, the calories pile up, the thick winter garments shield his fragile frame from the harsh weather (at least in the UK - the species' southern-hemisphere variant has an altogether different routine).

Then just as our man is getting used to life under covers, the clocks lurch forward, the days grow longer and he is reminded once more that the stench coming from the boot of his car is caused by seven months' worth of filthy, grass-stained, unwashed whites.

I watched India win the 1983 World Cup in black-and-white. I also watched it in colour. Colour television had arrived in 1982 with the Asian Games in Delhi, but my parents weren't early adopters. So the Indian innings, which I watched at home (including Kris Srikkanth's stirring cameo) lives in my mind in period monochrome. 183 in 1983. Srikkanth, who opened, pulled Andy Roberts for four and I can still, a quarter of a century later, hear that knowing commentator tell us that Roberts had two bouncers: the quick one and the quicker one. The one that Srikkanth had hammered had been the former. He knew, this commentating genius, that Roberts was setting him up. And he was…right. Roberts bowled him the faster bouncer and Srikkanth was so surprised that he pulled it for six.

But when we collapsed for under two hundred, the fairy tale seemed over. You have to understand that none of us really thought we could win. This was the West Indies, twice champions of the world already. Just to list their bowlers was to finger a rosary of scary modern greats: Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner. And we were one-day minnows; that we were in the final was a miracle. In the first two World Cup competitions we had won once, against a minor team.

In the break between innings, I did what what Indian fans have always done: I consoled myself with individual performances amid the collective wreckage. Individual performance, actually, in the singular: Srikkanth top-scored with 38. Reading the scorecard now, it's odd to notice that it took him 57 balls to make, because I remember it as a berserker innings.