Lost Teams story

India 1983: The World Cup Won With 183 Runs

India at the 1983 Cricket World Cup final.

India's total in the 1983 World Cup final at Lord's, and the smallest total ever defended in a World Cup final.

The outsiders

India had played in the first two World Cups, in 1975 and 1979, and won one match between them. They arrived in England in 1983 with odds that reflected it.

They beat the West Indies in the group stage, which was treated as an accident, then beat Australia and England to reach the final.

The final

Clive Lloyd won the toss and put India in. The innings lasted fifty four and four overs and produced one hundred and eighty three runs. No batsman reached forty.

The West Indies needed one hundred and eighty four in sixty overs, and they had Greenidge, Richards, Lloyd and Dujon to get them.

The collapse

They reached fifty for two. Then it went.

Kapil Dev ran back some distance to catch Viv Richards. Mohinder Amarnath finished with three wickets for twelve runs from seven overs and was named man of the match. The West Indies were all out for one hundred and forty.

India won by forty three runs.

What changed

Cricket in India had been a game with a following. After 1983 it became the thing the country organised itself around.

The commercial centre of the sport moved to the subcontinent over the following two decades, and the money that now runs cricket runs through India. The line back to that afternoon at Lord's is not a metaphor.

The number

One hundred and eighty three is on the print because it was supposed to be a losing score, and everyone watching knew it. The match is remembered for what the bowlers did with it.