In 1983, India’s world cup win was a huge shock for the entire cricketing world. It was even a bigger shock for the West Indian players who had to face the loss in the final. The players were upset and their egos were hurt. It was told that after the match was over Malcolm Marshall cried in the dressing room as the loss was a completely unexpected event for them.
However, the pedigree of these West Indian players was top class and soon they decided to show the world that they were not finished. When they came to India in October to play a six-match Test series, revenge was one of their top agendas. And from the very first day of the Test match, they started their work. However, it was the second day of the Test match, 22nd October 1983, when Malcolm Marshall showed his all-round skills and forced one of the leading Indian dailies to come up with the headline ‘Marshall law at Kanpur’ next day.
West Indies started day two on 255/5 with Gordon Greenidge already on 130 batting with Jeff Dujon. The duo added 152 runs for the sixth wicket and then Marshall at the fall-off Dujon’s wicket. He started playing his shots immediately and provided a good support to Greenidge. They added 130 runs before Greenidge was out and missed his double hundred by just six runs. Marshall did not get much support from the tail and was the last man out for 92 as Kapil Dev caught him of his own bowling. West Indies posted 454.
Once Indians came to bat Marshall changed his role and started bowling at full flow. He got Sunil Gavaskar on the second ball for a duck. The Man-of-the-Match of the World cup final, Mohinder Amarnath was Marshall’s second victim for another duck. The other opener Anshuman Gaekwad could score only four before becoming Marshall’s third victim. Dilip Vengsarkar was joined by Sandeep Patil. Vengsarkar batted for some time and reached 14 but that day Marshall was unstoppable as he bowled Vengsarkar to make India reeling with18/4. That day, Marshall’s first spell read 8-5-9-4 as India finished the day 34/5 and faced an innings defeat by the fourth day. It set the trend for the series which West Indies won handsomely with a 3-0 margin.
