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Home > Cricket > World Cup 2003 > Special >

Kapil's Devils v Sourav's Tigers

March 22, 2003

The Aces in Azure are just one match away from doing what Kapil's Devils did 20 years ago: bring home the Cup. Sunday's final against Australia is all that separate the boys from the sepia-tinted men who have been there, done that.

1983 was a long time ago. One-day cricket was still played in creams; the matches lasted 60 overs; the field restrictions in the first 15 overs were unknown, as were reverse sweeps and relay throws; pinch-hitters only played baseball; there were no TV umpires or match referees; Duckworth and Lewis were still to alter rain rules.

Kapil DevStill....

Still, Kapil and his men managed to sock it to a mighty West Indian side in what was only the 223rd one-day international in history. If Ganguly's men do manage to come up trumps in ODI # 1993, it will be odd numerical justice: after 1,770 ODIs, India will get the chance of wearing cricket's showpiece crown again.

Will they? Won't they? Those are questions that will obviously be answered on March 23. But what is it that Team 1983 had that enabled them to humble a side that comprised Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Lloyd, Gomes, Bacchus, Dujon---and Roberts, Garner, Holding and Marshall---with just 183 on the board?

And, more to the point, does Team 2003 have that in them to repeat the feat?

You decide.

Rediff.com gives you a chance to rank each member of Sourav's side based on their career and tournament performances.

Sourav GangulyAdmittedly, it is a bit of a one-sided contest in terms of experience: Kapil's XI had together played 288 ODIs before the Prudential Cup finals; Sourav's XII (not counting Ajit Agarkar, Sanjay Bangar and Parthiv Patel) have played 1,617; Sachin alone 313.

As a result, the runs scored and wickets taken are severely skewed. The current 12 (including Anil Kumble) has a grand total of 35,030 career runs as against 5,164 runs scored by Kapil's men going into the 1983 finals. And as against 1,125 wickets, the superstars of yore had 167 wickets on the morning of 25-6-83.

So what? Remember, it was the 1983 victory that sowed the seeds of one-day cricket in the country and allowed the game to explode. Without that victory, would Indian cricket have been where it is today?

So, compare the past and the present.

Take a look at the statistics of each 1983 star going into the finals, and the tournament stats of each 2003 star going into the finals. And then click below to rank each member of the 2003 squad on a scale of 10 on their performance in this World Cup to tell the world if you think Sourav's men stand a chance.

INTERACTIVE POLL:
Tell the world if you think Sourav's men stand a chance

1983: Kapil's Devils
BattingMINoRunsHsAvg
Gavaskar55--572510.40
Srikkanth77--1183916.86
Amarnath77--2118030.14
Yashpal Sharma7712298938.17
S. Patil77118951*31.50
Kapil Dev773288175*72.00
K Azad21--151515.00
R Binny75--712714.20
Madan Lal753852742.50
Kirmani7514724*11.75
B Sandhu7311778.50

BowlingOversMdnsRunsWktsAvg
Amarnath422166533.20
Patil90610--
Kapil Dev7392241120.36
K. Azad14135135.00
Binny7883131718.41
Madan Lal7162541418.14
Sandhu749265641.17

2003: Sourav's Tigers
BattingMINoRunsHsAvg
Sachin Tendulkar1010066915266.90
Sourav Ganguly10103441112*63.00
Rahul Dravid10952716267.80
Yuvraj Singh109321658*36.00
Virender Sehwag101002176621.70
Mohammad Kaif109118268*22.80
Dinesh Mongia10501084221.60
Harbhajan Singh952512817.00
Anil Kumble3212516*25.00
Zaheer Khan10411413*4.66
Javagal Srinath103100*0.00
Ashish Nehra800000

BowlingOversMdnsRunsWktsAvg
Srinath81.142821617.60
Zaheer Khan81.253071817.10
Nehra59.162321515.50
Harbhajan Singh77.25286931.80
Mongia25.1196519.20
Kumble271107521.40
Yuvraj Singh12.3258511.60
Ganguly20188329.33
Sehwag19174237.00
Tendulkar15057228.50

INTERACTIVE POLL:
Tell the world if you think Sourav's men stand a chance

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