BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

This is the TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

Welcome, it's another in our short yet perfectly formed series of re-living, bringing back

to life the world cups held in this country, 75, 79 and 99, but today it's 1983.

I'm Kevin Howles, opposite me in Manchester is Paul Allert, his former England teammate

in TMS Legend, Vic Marx is there in Exeter as well, and we've got Graham Fowler on the line

Summoner. We don't know where Graham is. He may be will tell us, but he's coming up

in a few moments time and of course we've got our stats man, Andy Zoltzmann in London,

for whom Andy the game is always more than just numbers, but here in 1983 it really gets personal,

doesn't it? Well, yeah, that was the first cricket match I ever went to was the

India versus Zimbabwe match at Tumberidge Wells, which you could argue is one of the most influential

games in the history of cricket, India were, they'd lost their previous two games, if they lost

as in Barbwey they were on the verge of going out, they sunk to 9 for 4, then 17 for 5 against a

non-test playing nation, and India had a terrible record in ODI cricket up to that point, and then

Kapoldev made 175, not out in 138 balls, smashing sixes into Tumberidge Wells's renowned

roader dendrons, India won that game, turned their tournament round, ended up winning the World Cup,

sparking a one day cricket boom, and I at that point was an eight year old boy, nervously asking

for autographs from the, well some very angry looking Indian players at the start of the match,

and it was a truly extraordinary game, and there was no TV coverage because there was some industrial

action as I recall, and so there was no footage of it, there's just a few photos of this legendary

innings by Kapoldev that in many ways have turned the history of certainly Indian cricket, and you

could argue World Cricket. And it is a lovely sight here with those roader dendrons in full bloom.

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