83, near-perfect film on Indian Cricket’s lion moment

Cricket, the game is life itself – interesting, evolving, syrupy and full of ups and downs. To call the glorification of its impact on Indian soul and situations as jingoistic would be as wrong as it would be to say that the mighty Sun is a stealthy night rider.

So, when Kabir Khan decided to make a movie around India’s first-ever World Cup victory, that too in England, dramatising it was the least of his problems, simply because it did not need any dramatisation. Just sticking to the Indian journey in England that June-July had all the drama of a team that altered the graph of Indian Cricket for all times to come.

Khan did well to stick to the facts. And fact was that India was a reconciled loser in Cricket, not just the team which was at best looking at the England outing as a paid vacation, but also the rest of the nation that loved the game without having any real hopes from it.

 

So much so that live TV was not happening, commentary was on the radio and none in the nation, including the cricketing body were looking at England with any kind of keenness.

Yet, this was Cricket! And, the game has for ages fuelled patriotic fervour, passion and compulsive obsession in an inexplicable manner. Yes, the soldiers at the most hostile of Indian frontiers like Siachen would carry the transistor to the war front. Yes, the common man would forget all the struggles of life when it came to India playing, even though not winning. Yes, everything would take a backseat if the team was winning. The nation came to standstill when India reached Lord’s. And yes, no other phenomenon could ever garner such oneness as Cricket, not even BR Chopra’s Ramayan.

Those were the days when a Balwinder Sandhu could manage only torn spike shoes; those were the days when a $ 15 pound per diem was considered handsome; those were the days when there was hardly any fan to greet Team India when it landed for a tournament; those were the days when an engagement with a Team India cricketer could be broken by the girl’s family on grounds of financial instability; those were the days really, when a Kapil Dev did not have a single ad for himself to tell the world Palmolive Da Jawab Nahi! All that came later, post the World Cup win.

Doctors and engineers were still on premium, jobs that a common cricketer would long for. Those were also the days when no one gave India a living chance in the World Cup – not the English not the Indian Press and certainly not the England Cricket Board mandarins who would not even accord a Lord’s accreditation to Team India’s manager. Disdain was the riding emotion even among fans.

Yet, Cricket was life for most Indians, it drew them inexorably into its fold. An Indira Gandhi was astute enough to take advantage of India’s new found winning streak in England – with a UP town burning in communal violence and the Army out on the streets to restore peace, she brought in live coverage of the semifinal and final of the 1983 World Cup and it turned out to be a masterstroke.

When Kapil Dev walked the haloed grounds of Lord’s to face the fierce two-time World Cup winners West Indies with their fiery bowling quartet in Michael Holding, Malcom Marshall, Andy Roberts and Joel Garner, Indian hope was cowering in a corner and yet Indian hope was surging like a tsunami; belief, too, was cowering and yet rising like a second coming; self-belief was so frail that a Sandhu wished in the dressing room that “100 bana lein to izzat se vapas jayenge.”

Such were the times, difficult and unbelievable times that Kapil’s squad had players he needed to mentor – a just married Srikkanth who knew nothing other than to hit the ball out of the boundary, often not connecting; a Roger Binny who knew how to swing it as no one else did; a Mohinder Amarnath who had legacy but not pace; a Yashpal Sharma who was hotheaded with the bat, a Kirmani who was a diminutive short drive man who manned the wicket from behind with genteel humour; a tall and lanky Ravi Shastri who was known more for his philandering than for his arm or willow. Not to mention Sunil Gavaskar who was a Test man in an ODI team or a surefooted Sandeep Patil and a medium pacer Madan Lal.

Fast bowlers then were not India’s style or high point. Kapil Dev was someone who was an oddity. Medium pacers ruled the roast and got rogered offshore. Batsmen feared the green, the bounce, the pace the swing and even the spin. Those were the days of mediocrity ruling the team despite individual splashes of brilliance.

So you see, those were interesting times, times that were begging to tell their story without exaggeration and Kabir Khan took the strike in a most surefooted Indian movie to be made on Cricket!.

Khan’s 83 is a recap that sits pretty on stunning similarities in characterisation. Ranveer Singh as Kapil Dev is 90 per cent him. Not just because his teeth are a perfect replica of Kapil’s but also because he caught the nuances of his gait, his diction and his reactions as well as the late Sushant Singh Rajput captured those of MS Dhoni on the big screen.

Not just Ranveer, those who are in the know of Cricket and have known cricketers from close proximity, would admit that be it Patil, Vengsarkar or Amarnath, the replicas were as much believable fakes as the Sabyasachi lehengas in Chandni Chowk selling at throwaway prices or, for that matter, the Gucci bags copied by the Chinese industry workers. You could hardly make out the difference.

Khan also scores because he sticks to the journey in totality without playing too much to the gallery. The only thing that may, just may have worked better would have been if he had got the originals in with prosthetics to relive their greatest moment on Earth. Perhaps! But I would still vouch for Ranveer as he holds the team and the film together with extraordinary histrionics that peddle naturalese and commitment in immeasurable measure. Without him, the film could not have lionised that chapter in Indian history that had till now evaded the big screen despite being a subject that should have made it to the cinemas three decades earlier.

Pankaj Tripathi, as always is a delight as the Hyderabadi manager of the team and despite very few visitations, leaves an endearing mark on the proceedings.

The odd-man out? Actually, the only character that did not show up as a replica was that of Kapil’s wife Romi. Deepika did not resemble her even an inch, not in her mannerisms, not in her gait and definitely not in her presence in Kapil’s life – and that despite the haircut that strangely Khan thought would take care of the rest.

But it’s not about the wives or the girlfriends. 83 is about a much bigger issue than just Cricket – it is about that first turn Team India took into the Hall of Fame, an effort that gave birth to self belief in generations to come, a performance that made the players think about themselves with some seriousness, an event that eventually took the Indian Cricket Board to grow as the world’s most influential cricketing body.

And yes, Sachin was back then just an adolescent who watched the Final at Lords, holding his bat next to his elder brother and the rest of the family, a fan who celebrated like the rest of us. So yes, his name is Khan and he has made a movie that will stay long enough in Indian imagination, as long as Cricket is in our bloodstream.