Читать книгу No Win Race. A Story of Belonging, Britishness and Sport онлайн
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The West Indies remained the favourites in 1984, although there had been some belief that England could push them. In the 1983 World Cup Final, India surprisingly defeated the West Indies. India had made a modest 183 runs and it appeared as if the West Indies would run away with a third World Cup in a row. Inspired by captain Kapil Dev, India rattled the West Indies out for a paltry 140 in one of the greatest upsets in cricket history.
In 1982, the West Indies had also lost some of their best players to a rebel tour in South Africa, at that point banned from international cricket due to apartheid. South Africa had been desperate to get back on the world sporting stage, so they started offering large sums of money to teams, mainly in cricket and rugby, to tour illegally. Nelson Mandela would later say that the sporting ban contributed to his freedom and indeed the end of the apartheid regime.
The first target had been Viv Richards. By 1983, he was acknowledged by many of his contemporaries as the greatest player in the world, and the greatest batsman since Australia’s legendary Don Bradman. Imran Khan, currently the Prime Minister of Pakistan and one of the great all-round cricketers in history, called Richards ‘a complete genius … no other batsman could attack me when I was at my peak’.4 Dennis Lillee, arguably the greatest fast bowler in history, said, in his autobiography Menace, that ‘for sheer ability to rip an attack apart, animal brutality and no fear in taking you on, I have to put Viv Richards on top of the list’. In 2000, Wisden would vote him as one of the five greatest players of the century, alongside Bradman, Sobers, Aussie spinner Shane Warne and English batsman Jack Hobbs.