As Dilip Vengsarkar entered the 90s while approaching his first ODI hundred at Sialkot during the 1984 tour, he saw Pakistan’s motor-mouth Javed Miandad coming towards him from third man. There were a couple of thoughts that crossed Vengsarkar’s mind. He wasn’t sure if the movement on field was skipper Zaheer Abbas’s ploy to put pressure on him by posting a close-in fielder. On second thoughts, he feared it was just Miandad indulging in his old trick of initiating a provocative dialogue with a well-set batsman between overs.

But the sombre look on Miandad’s face surprised him. “He came to me and told me that he had heard from someone in the stands that Indira Gandhi had been assassinated. Those days people used to carry transistors to matches, and that’s how they had come to know this,” says Vengsarkar, 25 years after he was stranded on 94 on a day when cricket was the last thing on anyone’s mind.

Vengsarkar walked up to batting partner Ravi Shastri to break the news, and soon team manager Raj Singh Dungarpur signaled them to leave the field.

Opener Anshuman Gaekwad, dismissed earlier, describes the mood in the dressing room.

“Dungarpur came to know through the High Commission and there was an eerie silence as he made the announcement. We just had blank looks on our faces. It had been decided that the tour was to be abandoned and we had leave the stadium right away,” he said.

Sandeep Patil, who had played a blazing innings of 59, remembers the chaos and the heavy atmosphere as they were rushed into the team bus.

... contd.