"People don't remember world records. They remember only world champions"
-- Daley Thompson The 1983 World Cup triumph and the 1985 Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket victory will forever be regarded as two of Indian cricket's greatest epics. The 1985 win is close to my heart for personal reasons, of course, but my cricketing logic, too, convinces me that that victory in Australia is the greatest yet by an Indian cricket team. In that series we moved without a stutter, crushing all opposition. In four of the five matches, we bowled out the opposition – the final, in which Pakistan lost nine wickets, was the only exception. Only once did any team make more than 200 runs against us – New Zealand, in the semis. That was also the only match in which we looked like we might be under pressure, but Kapil Dev came and dictated terms with the bat like only he could, and it was a breeze in the end, as it was right through the championship. The home-series against England that year was forgettable, yet we felt a surge in confidence as we left for Australia. As we walked from our team hotel, the Melbourne Hilton, to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) for our first match, Sadanand Viswanath said: "We are walking out today for our first match and we will be walking out on the final day too." It may seem an innocuous remark, but to say such a thing even before stepping onto the ground for the first match showed how positive he was. And it was infectious.

My selection in the team was greeted with general disbelief and disdain by the media. Spinners – especially leggies – were still a taboo of sorts in limited-overs cricket, and I was a rookie with no one-day international experience. But the team management had confidence in me. As India prepared to go out and field in the first match, we heard Ian Chappell read out the names of the players on TV: "The good news is that the Indians are playing the legspinner, the bad news is that we have to pronounce his name – Laxman Seevaa… raamaa… kreeshnaan!" We heard it and went out to field laughing. And we were smiling at the end of it all. As we did a lap of honour around the MCG in Ravi's [Shastri] luxurious Audi – the car presented to him when he was voted Champion of Champions in the tournament – I knew I had played my part: I had taken 10 wickets, more than any other bowler in the championship.

The tournament was a watershed for spinners, and the success Ravi and I enjoyed proved that slow bowlers had a role to play in turning one-dayers around. Both of us bowled the middle overs and we didn't just contain the runs but also took wickets at regular intervals, with the result that it mostly was the opposition tail which was batting at the slog.

One tragi-comic moment from the championship is still fresh in my memory. It came in a match against New Zealand, when Lance Cairns flicked the ball to [Krishnamachari] Srikkanth on the wide midwicket fence. Srikkanth was late getting off the blocks and failed to get to the ball. Cairns then struck another one in the same direction, and this time Srikkanth did not even go for the catch. [Captain Sunil] Gavaskar was wild. He promptly changed Srikkanth's position. But as luck would have it, Cairns hit it towards Srikkanth again! This time Srikkanth's radar spotted the ball and he took the catch. We were in splits, but poor Srikkanth kept muttering, "I couldn't see, I couldn't see". I could empathise with him: I was fielding at deep square-leg, where the sun shone straight into the eyes.

The team had a sprinkling of youngsters like myself, Azhar [Mohammad Azharuddin], Viswanath, Manoj Prabhakar and Chetan Sharma. The seniors like Gavaskar, Kapil, Dilip Vengsarkar and Jimmy [Mohinder] Amarnath never made us feel lost. It was the kind of team spirit I have not seen before or since, and credit for it goes to the captain and the manager, [Erapalli] Prasanna. They ensured that everybody felt wanted and stayed relaxed.

Gavaskar, for example, used to ask me what kind of field I wanted. It made me feel good that a highly experienced player like him valued my opinions. He understood me as a bowler and gave me the freedom to experiment, which is so important for a leggie. For a man who was pilloried as a one-day player, he succeeded both as a batsman and a captain. He got the best out of each and every player in the team and in the process he proved that the 1983 World Cup win was not a fluke.

We had no inkling that he would return home and relinquish the captaincy. In hindsight, though, it was a great move – to go out on a high.

L Sivaramakrishnan spoke to H Natarajan, senior editor with Wisden Asia Cricket

Subscribe to Wisden Asia Cricket
Subscribe to Wisden Asia Cricket in India

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd