BENGALURU: On Tuesday afternoon a star hotel was brought to life by four former cricketers Kapil Dev, Roger Binny, Syed Kirmani and Kris Srikkanth, all of whom were part of the 1983 World Cup winning team. The foursome were in their element at the ‘Britannia Khao, World Cup Jao’ campaign. But it was Srikkanth, who stole the show with his anecdotes from the historic triumph.
In fact, for some Indian cricketers, including Srikkanth, the host country, England, was supposed to be a stopover. “You have to know that in the last two world cups (in 1975 and 1979), we got thrashed,” said Srikkanth. They beat East Africa in 1975. “There was no country called East Africa...it was all the gujus put together, Patel bhai and all that’’.
Srikkanth had plans of “watching the World Cup semis and finals at Lords and then going on a holiday to the US with my wife.” “I swear on Lord Krishna that that was the original plan,” added Srikkanth.
Seated left of him was Binny, who was asked to explain how he survived Srikkanth as a roommate. “Every minute of the stay in the room with him was eventful. Your bags are trampled on. The cigarette buds are thrown in the bag, suddenly you find smoke coming out of the bag. And he always sang Hindi songs that he didn’t even understand. However, he took off pressure from me,” said Binny.
Srikkanth was at his humorous best throughout the event. During the banter, he mentioned that he recently celebrated his 36th wedding anniversary, to which someone said, “You do not look that old’ and prompt came Srikkanth’s reply, touching his mane,” I know I am very young, I colour my hair beautifully”.
Despite the jokes, Srikkanth reserved some golden words for Kapil at the end. “If there was one person, who believed that we could win the might West Indies in the World Cup, even before it started, it was Kapil Dev. Roger and many of us felt that Kapil has gone mad, but that was the spirit, which he brought into the team. The man, who believed we could do it.”
The reserved Kapil after learning that Srikkanth deviated from the question, asked him to answer the question, which was originally asked. The crowd once again laughed it out, which was order of the day.