'THAT WAS THE BIGGEST SHOCK OF MY LIFE'

Legendary cricketer Syed Kirmani's autobiography, Stumped: Life Behind and Beyond the Twenty-Two Yards, which releases on Sunday, candidly traces his life from a boy growing up in Bengaluru to winning the 1983 World Cup and life after his exit from cricket

- MAHIMA NAGARAJU

PICTURE this: The 1983 World Cup is in full swing and the Indian cricket team, a bunch of underdogs, is playing against Zimbabwe. And all is not going well. "I was in my dressing room, preparing myself for a breakfast and a good shower and suddenly, there's a big shout from outside - '17 for five wickets, come out!' I saw the scoreboard and then the floor took off from under my feet," recalls Syed Kirmani, former Indian wicket-keeper. The team continues to lose wicket after wicket, and the score is a disappointing 140/8 when Kirmani comes on the field with captain Kapil Dev opposite him. He continues, "I walked up to Kapil, and said, 'We are in a do-or-die situation, we cannot give up just like this,' and he replied, 'We have to play at least 30 overs'." This partnership, completely turning the tables on Zimbabwe and winning India a crucial match was never recorded on camera but is the stuff of legend in Indian cricket.