Revision as of 23:11, 8 February 2015

India beat Australia to reach '83 semis

gocricket.com 20 Jun 2014

At Chelmsford, Roger Binny's indefatigable spirit was on display in a famous Indian win.

India beat Australia in their final league match of the 1983 World Cup at Chelmsford. It was a do-or-die fixture, and Kapil Dev's team beat the odds to make it to their first World Cup semi-final.

Here's how it panned out:

This was an epic match in the context of India's World Cup dream. Had they lost to Australia here, they would have been ousted on the basis of Australia's better head-to-head record, and so the match at Chelmsford was one of life and death.

Coming to this match, Australia weren't in the best of shape, with their bowling especially suspect, but on this day, they managed to bowl India out for 247 in 55.5 overs. From a poor start (3 for 1), Australia were looking good on 46 for 1 when Roger Binny, in his most outstanding display of an outstanding World Cup, knocked the stuffing out of them.

In three overs, the 16th, the 17th and the 20th, Binny reduced the Aussies to 52 for 4, and the game was over as a contest. Bowling seam-up and hitting all the right places, Binny confounded the opposition with just the right pace on that wicket, and claimed match-winning figures of 8-2-29-4. In many ways, Binny was the epitome of India's spirit that summer, and it was here, at Chelmsford, that his indefatigable spirit was on display.