In the light of what was to follow, it seems impossible to imagine that we departed for the World Cup in 1983 in a less than confident frame of mind.

The ground realities, however, were stark: Zimbabwe may have been the official minnows that year, but everyone knew there were three of us, really: Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, and India. Of course, we were not supposed to be as badly off as the other two, but our inexperience of the ODI format made us dark horses, to put it politely. So my personal view was that we would be lucky to make it past the knockout stage.

So there we were: a bowling attack that, apart from Kapil Dev, can best be described as tentative, and a batting line-up that had depth without being devastating. Yes, we had bona fide spinners in Ravi Shastri, and Kirti Azad, while Sandip Patil bowled all sorts, much like Sachin Tendulkar.

Yashpal Sharma, too, could bowl off-spin, but conditions in England obviously favoured our medium pacers-Madan Lal, Mohinder Amarnath, Roger Binny, and Balwinder Sandhu - more.

We were capitalising on the complacency of our opponents and before they quite realised it, we had them by the scruff of the neck.

We had beaten the West Indies much before the final- in our opening match at that World Cup - at Old Trafford, where the margin of victory was 34 runs, and then we defeated Australia by 118 runs at Chelmsford.

Nothing to lose

We had nothing to lose - no coach, no physiotherapist, no support staff, no endorsements to speak of, nothing. We were just enjoying ourselves hugely, every win was a bonus, and that showed in our cricket.

We also had a dynamic captain at the helm, who being a man of few words, led by example.

And we as seniors gave Kapil our complete support, though he was significantly junior than a lot of the players. There were no egos involved, which I believe had a huge impact.

For my part, I was inspired at the thought of representing the country, and that was motivation and inspiration enough for most of us.

Talking about inspiration naturally brings me to Kapil Dev at Tunbridge Wells.

At the start of the Indian innings, I was in a towel, leisurely preparing for a shower and shave prior to breakfast. I hadn't looked at the scoreboard at all, believe it or not, until someone - I forget who - screamed at me to pad up.

When I saw 17 for 5 on the board I initially couldn't believe my eyes.

In a matter of moments, though, I dropped everything and padded up.

When I walked out at 140 for 8, I was still in a daze, looking to see that I had my pads on the right way up, and checking that all the guards were in place because I had kitted up in such a rush. Kapil was standing at the other end, legs crossed, weight resting on his bat, head down. Until then, he had concentrated on building the innings, so I walked up to him and said, "You play your natural game, I'll hold up the other end and give you the strike. Don't panic."

I had been in crisis situations before, and I knew what I could and could not do. Kapil, too, had faith in me, which encouraged him to free his arms.

The first two deliveries that rushed past my nose resembled concave and convex bananas. I let them pass. The third was slightly outside off, so I hammered it for four. And Kapil drew inspiration from that.

"If Kiri can play that shot, so can I," he reckoned, and proceeded to kill Duncan Fletcher and Co.

It was batting at its most savage - 16 fours and six sixes tell the entire story. Think about it, the team posted 266, of which Kapil contributed 175*, and I was the second highest scorer with 24!

Our six-wicket semi-final win against England was closely fought and so we marched into the final.

Positive atmosphere

I remember that at lunch, with India 183 all out, the atmosphere was still positive. We had never in our dreams imagined that we could progress that far, and so when we took the field, it was with a "Chalo jawanon, let's do it" kind of attitude.

Every Indian fan knows what happened thereafter, so I will not bore you with details, but remember that we were without Shastri and Vengsarkar, so our underdog status was pronounced.

Another aspect that gives me much pleasure is the 30-run partnership that Sandhu and I put on for the last wicket. That we eventually won by 43 runs seemed significant in this context. With the West Indies, because they batted so deep down, every wicket was a turning point, so I would go against convention and say that Viv Richards' was a crucial, but not decisive, dismissal.

And so we lived our fairy tale. The minnows had conquered the world, and our luck had held in incredible fashion.

- Gameplan