In the 1996 World Cup, when India won the high-pressure quarter-final match against Pakistan in Bengaluru, the hangover was so severe that India could not recover from it till the semi-final match against Sri Lanka four days later. Indian team coach Ajit Wadekar knew that the Indian team has a habit that after winning a big match, they start taking things easy.
Sanjay Manjrekar writes in his autobiography 'Imperfect', 'I remember once after winning the match, we all were joking among ourselves in the plane.
That evening, during the team meeting in the hotel, Wadekar suddenly lashed out at us, “Who do you think you are?” Have you won the tournament? What's happening in flight? What kind of behavior was this
Wadekar was in a similar mood before the semi-final against Sri Lanka. Only he kept speaking in the team meeting. After that Captain Azharuddin said a few words. Although this meeting lasted for about an hour, only 50 minutes were discussed on how to stop Sri Lankan openers Romesh Kaluwitharna and Jayasuriya.
Both of them performed very well against India in the league match held in Delhi a few days ago and easily crossed India's score of 272 runs. His batting was so strong that Manoj Prabhakar was forced to bowl an off-spin ball and this was the beginning of the end of his career.
On reaching Calcutta (now Kolkata), the Indian team was told that the pitch at Eden Gardens had recently been re-laid with soil brought from Australia. At first glance that pitch looked as solid as any Eden Garden Australian pitch.
Sachin Tendulkar writes in his autobiography ‘Playing It My Way’, “As soon as we saw the pitch, we decided that if we won the toss, we would field first. One reason behind this was that Sri Lanka had successfully pursued its goals till then.
Their opening batsmen Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluvitarna were playing the role of pinch hitters from the very first ball and were successful in giving good starts to Sri Lanka in most of the matches. They had defeated us in the league match. It was important that we put pressure on them by taking their wickets early on.
India won the toss and asked Sri Lanka to bat first. There was no limit to the happiness of the Indian team when they sent both the openers back to the pavilion in the very first over.
Sanjay Manjrekar writes, I caught Kaluvitarna at third man for a golden duck off Srinath's ball and Venkatesh Prasad caught Jayasuriya. After this we didn't know what to do. Like Abhimanyu in Mahabharata, we had trained ourselves to enter the maze of goals but we had not prepared ourselves for how to come out of the maze.
For a while our focus got diverted from the match and Arvind de Silva took full advantage of it and scored 66 runs in 47 balls. Mahanama also recovered Sri Lanka from the initial loss by playing an inning of 58 runs. At the end of the innings, thanks to Ranatunga's 35 runs, Tillakaratne's 32 runs and Chaminda Vaas' 22 runs, the Sri Lankan team took its score to 251 runs.
When Sachin Tendulkar came to bowl, he realized that he had made a mistake in reading the pitch. He wrote in his autobiography, “The ball was moving towards the batsman without stopping. Even though the upper surface of the pitch looked strong, the soil beneath it was not compacted. It was clear that this pitch was not going to last for full 50 overs. It was important to keep Sri Lanka's score limited. But despite this, they managed to score 251 runs in 50 overs, which proved to be very heavy for us in the end.
Later Ranatunga admitted that his target was to score 275-280 runs but when he saw the ball spinning, he started feeling that even 220 runs would be enough on this pitch. When Sachin Tendulkar came to bowl, he realized that he had made a mistake in reading the pitch. India won the toss and asked Sri Lanka to bat first. There was no limit to the happiness of the Indian team when they sent both the openers back to the pavilion in the very first over.
Sanjay Manjrekar writes, I caught Kaluvitarna at third man for a golden duck off Srinath's ball and Venkatesh Prasad caught Jayasuriya. After this we didn't know what to do. Like Abhimanyu in Mahabharata, we had trained ourselves to enter the maze of goals but we had not prepared ourselves for how to come out of the maze.
For a while our focus got diverted from the match and Arvind de Silva took full advantage of it and scored 66 runs in 47 balls. Mahanama also recovered Sri Lanka from the initial loss by playing an inning of 58 runs. At the end of the innings, thanks to Ranatunga's 35 runs, Tillakaratne's 32 runs and Chaminda Vaas' 22 runs, the Sri Lankan team took its score to 251 runs.
When Sachin Tendulkar came to bowl, he realized that he had made a mistake in reading the pitch. He wrote in his autobiography, “The ball was moving towards the batsman without stopping. Even though the upper surface of the pitch looked strong, the soil beneath it was not compacted. It was clear that this pitch was not going to last for full 50 overs. It was important to keep Sri Lanka's score limited. But despite this, they managed to score 251 runs in 50 overs, which proved to be very heavy for us in the end.
Later Ranatunga admitted that his target was to score 275-280 runs but when he saw the ball spinning, he started feeling that even 220 runs would be enough on this pitch. When Sachin Tendulkar came to bowl, he realized that he had made a mistake in reading the pitch.
Now all eyes were on Sachin Tendulkar to give a good start to India and he did not disappoint the audience. On a spinning pitch, he took his score to 65 and was strangely stumped out on the score of 98.
Tendulkar writes, 'Jayasurya was bowling spin with his left hand. One of his balls hit my pad and turned towards the on side. I thought there was scope for a quick run, so I came out of the crease. But then I saw that the ball had stopped very close to wicketkeeper Kaluvitarna. I neither had time to score runs nor to come back to the crease. He scattered the wickets in a flash. I went to the pavilion without waiting for the third umpire's decision because I knew that I was out. When I was moving towards the pavilion, I was aware that the path for the batsmen after me would not be easy.
By the time Sachin and Manjrekar had a partnership of 90 runs for the second wicket, at least the spectators did not feel that the pitch had deteriorated.
Sanjay Manjrekar writes, 'When Kumar Dharmasena bowled an off-break ball to Azharuddin, it grazed outside the off stump which was collected by wicketkeeper Kaluvitarna at chest height on the leg side. This ball was declared wide but after this I can never forget the smile that appeared on Dharmasena's face. Perhaps he realized at that very moment that the match was theirs and his team would go to Lahore and not India to play the final match. Apart from Dharmasena, there were two more spinners in that Sri Lankan team, Muttiah Muralitharan and Jayasuriya. Aravinda de Silva could also bowl the spin ball if needed. After Tendulkar's dismissal, when two more top batsmen returned to the pavilion, we knew in our hearts that everything was about to end.
Azharuddin returned to the pavilion without scoring any runs. Manjrekar was clean bowled by Jayasuriya. Javagal Srinath was promoted over Ajay Jadeja so that he could partner left-handed batsman Vinod Kambli. But he was run out on the score of 6 runs.
Jadeja also returned to the pavilion after playing 11 balls without scoring any runs. As soon as Nayan Mongia and Ashish Kapoor were out, the end of the Indian innings became clearly visible.
By then the patience of the Eden Garden spectators had run out. When they realized that India had no hope of winning, they started throwing plastic and glass bottles on the field. At that time 15 overs were left to be bowled and India's score was 120 runs for 8 wickets.
In order to calm the crowd, both the umpires and match referee Clive Lloyd called the players of both the teams off the field. The game resumed after half an hour but before Muttiah Muralitharan could bowl the second ball of his over, the crowd again started throwing bottles on the field. The situation became so bad that the Sri Lankan fielders who were fielding on the boundary came near the pitch. The audience was not ready for India's defeat before their eyes. Then the referee decided to stop the game and declare Sri Lanka the winner. When Vinod Kambli, unbeaten on ten runs, was returning to the pavilion, tears were flowing from his eyes. The crowd had no idea that their attitude was bringing bad name to the country. This incident dealt a deep blow to the sports traditions of Calcutta.
India's great spinner Erapalli Prasanna wrote in the local Telegraph newspaper that India should have won the toss and batted first.
India's decision to field was a psychological decision which was not taken as part of any strategy. Captain Azharuddin admitted in the press conference after the match that he did not want Sri Lanka to chase runs.
Navjot Sidhu was the only person in the Indian team who wanted India to bat first, but his views were not listened to. Later the groundsman also told that he had advised the Indian captain that he should bat first but he ignored his advice and chose to field first. After reaching the hotel, Sanjay Manjrekar, Sachin Tendulkar, Ajay Jadeja and two other players gathered in a room.
Sanjay Manjrekar writes, 'Just then Vinod Kambli entered the room. Ajay Jadeja took him to task for crying publicly over the team's defeat. He did not like Kambli's inability to control his emotions. But perhaps Kambli was disappointed that he lost the opportunity to play a match-saving innings for India. Sri Lanka's winning streak did not stop here. Four days later, they won the World Cup for the first time by defeating Australia in the final in Lahore.
Also Read: ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 commentators list
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