and former India coach)

Undated (UNI) I had the privilege of bowling the first ball of the World Cup to John Jameson of England at Lord's. If I remember right, I had three slips, a gully, a point, a conventional Test match field setting.

The memories are vivid but at that moment, let me admit, I never gave such importance to the fact that it was the first ball of an event that would change the course of the game in times to come.

It has been a long time. Lord's, June 7, 1975. We did not do well and honestly I doubt if anyone from that team would like to remember India's first match in the World Cup. For that matter, there was little to remember from that inaugural World Cup.

There was no hype preceding our departure. In 1974, we had suffered a poor tour of England and in any case we were raw as far as one-day cricket was concerned. It had just about begun to attract attention among the purists but India was completely new in this field.

When we landed in London, the first thing that struck us was that it was just like any other tour for us. There was no perceptible change in the cricket atmosphere. It was World Cup but there was not much great excitement around. The matches were to be played on a 60-overs-a-side basis. We were smashed around by the English but let me confess that we had little time to adapt. With the exception of Bishan Singh Bedi and Farouk Engineer, only a few of us had a clue about the English conditions. And then the English cricketers, along with the Australians, had been regularly playing one day cricket. So it was quite comfortable for them.

Our first match in the World Cup was dominated by Dennis Amiss.

He was a compact opener and slammed a big hundred before I got him.

He was my lone victim in that match. Keith Fletcher and Chris Old made some handsome contributions and England set us a target of 335.

Among the bowlers, our captain, S Venkataraghavan, bowled the best.

Our response was forgettable. Sunil Gavaskar got stuck in the middle. I don't know what happened to him that day. He returned unbeaten on 36.

More UNI