The day a craze began

This week an event that started the power shift of cricket from the traditional fortress of Lord's (and its cups of tea and polite clapping) to the much more lively Eden Gardens (with its 100,000 screaming fans crammed to the rafters) was commemorated. When the Indian team overcame favourites West Indies by 43 runs in the 1983 Cricket World Cup final at Lord's, little did they know they would create a religion of a sport. Kapil Dev led his team of no-hopers magnificently to glory and thus began the revolution. The resultant cricket frenzy spread across the billion-something population and the next-generation of cricketers became idolised to such an extent that placards held at grounds by fans now read: "Cricket is our religion, Sachin is our God," in reference to star batsman Sachin Tendulkar, who has become the most marketable cricketer in history. The 14-man squad attended a private function in the pavilion at Lord's on Wednesday to mark the 25th anniversary of the win, which was instrumental in the Indian Cricket Board becoming the richest in the world. Meanwhile, Wimbledon started this week and away from the main courts, where Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Ana Ivanovic and Maria Sharapova went through the motions in the first few rounds, to the outskirts where the girl with the longest name at Wimbledon won her first round match, much to the horror of the scoreboard operators. At 16 Anastasia Sergeyevna Pavlyuchenkova is also the youngest player to make it out of qualifying for the main draw. However, what is of real interest is that she's Russian and joins a long line of photogenic, athletic women from her country to dominate the sport. How does Russia do it? It is certainly a secret that the Lawn Tennis Association will be increasingly keen to get their hands on. No British man has won a singles title since 1936 and no woman since 1977. This despite the the tournament's profits – estimated at more than £100million (Dh736m) in the past five years – being ploughed into developing the national game. In Formula One at Magny-Cours Lewis Hamilton was left regretting he did whatever he did to upset the stewards as, for the second race in a row, the McLaren driver was penalised and ended up without points. Starting in 13th position due to a 10-place penalty incurred from his pitlane accident in Canada, the British driver had moved up to ninth in the first lap before being penalised for overtaking Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel by cutting across a chicane in the manoeuvre. Although TV replays showed he performed the move legally, the stewards cited evidence from a "hidden camera" (to the huge outcry from the McLaren management) and Hamilton ended up in 10th position. Ferrari's Felipe Massa won the Grand Prix followed by team mate Kimi Raikkonen and the Brazilian goes to the top of the championship standings with 48 points ahead of BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica (46), Raikkonen (43) and Hamilton (38). The Championship looks all set for a repeat of last year's humdinger finish. Back to cricket and in Barbados, Xavier Marshall smashed 36 off 15 balls as the West Indies beat triple world champions Australia by seven wickets in a Twenty20 game reduced to 11 overs a side. No seriously, they did. Oh, and then life returned to normal as Australia then won the first ODI by 84 runs, courtesy of a 81 by debutant and IPL top runscorer Shaun Marsh. Down to Zimbabwe – and it is a long way down we have to go as the South African country continues to plummet to new depths – where next week may see them banned from international cricket. Their only supporters, Cricket South Africa, changed their stance, so expect the ICC to banish Zimbabwe from the game.