NEW DELHI, June 23: When Kapil Dev led India to victory in the 1983 Cricket World Cup at Lords, he himself did not know what his team had achieved but after 25 years, the legendary all-rounder finally realised what those 11 players did.

“In life things happen before you realise. At that time we all were young. As captain I did not realise what had happened and how it happened. It is now, 25 years later, we realise our achievement,” Kapil said at the felicitation of his 14-member 1983 World Cup winning team here last night.

BCCI president Sharad Pawar, who does not share same ideology when it comes to current state of cricket in India, believes it was 1983 World Cup win which helped India to emerge as a great administrative and sporting nation in cricket.

“I believe it was this team which helped in accelerating popularity of cricket in India,” Pawar said. “India’s Twenty20 World Cup win followed your achievement. We all hope current team follow your footsteps in 2011 World Cup to be jointly hosted by India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh,” he added.

Ravi Shastri, then youngest member of the World Cup winning team exuded confidence in present players and said M. S. Dhoni-led side is capable of repeating the history. “2011 World Cup will be played in the subcontinent. I think we have a team in the making which can repeat our feet.”

Pawar said in those days BCCI did not have much money to back players but they showed great commitment to inscribe their names in history books.

“It was this team that sowed seeds of status we are enjoying today.”—Agencies