Nobody's idea of a contender
India arrived in England in June 1983 having won one World Cup match in eight years, and that against East Africa. Their odds for the tournament were quoted at 66 to 1. The West Indies had won both previous editions and had never lost a match in either. The format had been widened so that each group played home and away, giving twenty-four preliminary matches instead of twelve, and the expectation was that more cricket would simply confirm the same order.
It went wrong for the favourites on the opening day. Zimbabwe, in their first World Cup match, beat Australia at Trent Bridge by 13 runs, Duncan Fletcher making 69 not out and taking four wickets. Wisden called it a bigger surprise than anything in the first two tournaments. On the same afternoon at Old Trafford, India bowled the West Indies out for 228 and won by 34, the first defeat the holders had suffered in the competition.
Tunbridge Wells
The innings that has outlasted everything else was played on 18 June on a club ground in Kent. India were 9 for 4 against Zimbabwe, then 17 for 5. Kapil Dev came in and made 175 not out from 138 balls, adding 126 for the ninth wicket with Syed Kirmani and carrying India to 266 for 8. Zimbabwe reached 235. No television cameras were present; a BBC dispute meant the match went unrecorded, which is why an innings everybody knows about is one almost nobody has seen.
India then lost heavily to the West Indies and needed to beat Australia at Chelmsford to qualify. They made 247 with nobody passing 40, and bowled Australia out for 129. At Old Trafford in the semi-final they chased down England's 213 with more than five overs in hand.
Twenty-two overs at Lord's
The final was not, on the face of it, a contest. India were bowled out for 183 in 54.4 overs by Roberts, Marshall, Garner and Holding. It remains the lowest total ever successfully defended in a World Cup final. What followed was 140 all out. Viv Richards made 33 from 28 balls and looked likely to finish the thing inside twenty overs, then miscued Madan Lal to deep midwicket, where Kapil Dev ran some twenty yards backwards to hold the catch. The West Indies lost their last eight wickets for 64. Mohinder Amarnath took three for 12 and, having already been man of the match in the semi-final, took the award again.
Consequence
The trophy did more to reshape cricket than any result before or since. Television audiences in India, previously indifferent to the one-day game, discovered it overnight. The money followed, and within a decade the sport's commercial centre had moved from London to Bombay. The next World Cup was staged in India and Pakistan. So was the one after that.