User:The C of E/83

During the 1983 Cricket World Cup, India and Zimbabwe played a Group B match at the Nevill Ground in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. The match became famous for India's Kapil Dev scoring 175 not out in order to win the match. It became referred to as the reason why India would go on to win the final.

Background
India had been a full member of the International Cricket Conference since 1926 but had never won the Cricket World Cup. Zimbabwe were an associated member that had previously won the 1982 ICC Trophy, 2 years after transitioning from being Rhodesia. The match was scheduled to be played at Tunbridge Wells Cricket Club's Nevill Ground. Due to the match being considered inconsequential at the small ground by the BBC and due to there being a strike at the time, no camera crew was sent to film the match.

Match
India won the toss and elected to bat first on a ground that would be referred to as a "batsman's paradise". However, they were reduced to 9-4 before Dev stepped up to bat. Sunil Gavaskar was out second ball leg before wicket (LBW) by Peter Rawson for a duck. Kris Srikkanth also failed to score being caught out by Iain Butchart off the bowling of Kevin Curran. Mohinder Amarnath, Sandeep Patil and Yashpal Sharma were all caught out by the Zimbabwean wicketkeeper Dave Houghton off the bowling of Curran and Rawson for 5, 1 and 9 respectively. Just before Dev's innings were due to start, the Indian team started making plans for their journey home.

Due to the layout of the Nevill Ground pitch, the legside boundary was shorter than the offside boundary. Dev played most of his shots towards long-on. When it got to India being 17-5, Roger Binny came in and batted defensively whilst Dev batted offensively. Dev and Binny formed a partnership taking India's score to 77 before Binny was out LBW for 22 off the bowling of John Traicos.

In total Dev scored 16 fours and 6 sixes. A number of the sixes caused damage to nearby facilities. One broke the pavilion windows, one smashed the windscreen of a car in the car park and another was hit out of the ground and hit the roof of a nearby house.