Kapil's 9: 3rd Test, West Indies tour of India, 1983
In 1983, West Indies toured India for a six-match test series and a five-match ODI series. The Windies were looking for some redemption after being beaten by India in the recently concluded World Cup finals.
On the other hand, India the newly crowned World Champions were expected to do well, after all, they were the team that ended the Windies domination in the World Cup. They also had the home team advantage. But the series did not start well for the Indians. They lost the first Test by an innings and 83 runs and managed to draw the 2nd Test.
The 3rd Test held at Ahmedabad was to witness one of the greatest bowling performances in Test cricket. A performance that would see one man running riot through the West Indies batting line up - India's World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev.
India had won the toss and elected to field first. West Indies in the first innings scored 281 runs. Jeff Dujon top scored 98 runs followed by Clive Lloyd with 68 runs. Maninder Singh & Roger Binny shared 7 wickets among them with bowling figures of 4/85 & 3/18 respectively.
Gavaskar's 90 helped India and his opening partnership of 127 runs with Anshuman Gaekwad (39) reach 241 in the first innings. Wayne Daniel of the West Indies picked up five wickets for 39 runs.
In the Windies 2nd Innings, Kapil Dev produced one of the greatest bowling performance in Test cricket by picking up 9 wickets for 83 runs. His bowling performance included two clean bowled, four caught outs and tree LBW's. He bowled six maiden overs in his spell of 30.3 overs. His getting of wickets at regular intervals saw the Windies being restricted to 201 all out in their 2nd Innings.
Kapil's performance of 9/83 remained the best performance by an Indian bowler in an innings in a Test match for a long time. It was broken by Anil Kumble in 1999 against Pakistan when he took 10/74 in an innings. Kapil with this performance had given India a chance to level the series.
India needed 242 runs in their 2nd innings to win the match. They were bundled out of 103 runs, with only Gaekwad, Kirmani and Maninder Singh reaching the double figures. Michael Holding took 4 wickets.
West Indies were now 2-0 up in the series. Kapil in spite of his historic performance was not named the Player of the Match instead, it went to Micheal Holding for his all-around performance with the bat and the ball (he had scored a half-century and taken 6 wickets in the match)
India eventually went on to lose the test series 3-0. They drew the 4th Test, before being beaten in the 5th Test. The final match of the series was also drawn. The ODI series following the Test series was another disappointment for the Indians. They were whitewashed 5-0 by the Windies.