When asking rate became gasping rate!

When asking rate became gasping rate!

By Austin Coutinho

Text and Illustration by Austin Coutinho

After winning the Prudential World Cup in 1983, the Indians weren’t expected to do well in the Benson & Hedges World Championships of Cricket played Down Under, in the summer of 1985, under the captaincy of Sunil Gavaskar. They, however, went from strength to strength as the tournament progressed and eventually won it.

At the Sydney Cricket Ground, when India faced England in a league match, a die-hard Pommie displayed a banner saying, “Give ’em curry, David Gower!” However, chasing 225, the England asking-rate soon climbed to impossible proportions. The big scoreboard reflected the Aussie humor when in place of the asking-rate, it displayed, ‘PRAY’!

When India won the match by 86 runs, a banner, in reply to the earlier one said, “Did the pressure cooker blow up, Mr. David Gower?”

(Austin Coutinho, Deputy Manager (CRM) with RCF, is a cartoonist and writer. A former club cricketer, he is also a cricket and football coach)