The Devil's Pack is the story of cricketers with a human face who excelled themselves to become world beaters.

In this book, Balvinder Singh Sandhu, who used the new ball to such telling effect in World Cup 1983, talks about his teammates describing how he saw them from up close. He reveals some hitherto unknown and interesting facts about the players, how they faced stress, behaved off the field and egged each other on the excel. He narrates quite a few anecdotes too, making the book a must read.

Sandhu in his preface, says: "The Indian team of '83 had a lot of characters. All of us gave a hundred percent on the field and then had a lot of fun off it. The Devil's Pack is a collection of my thoughts on that World Cup win and more importantly for me, how I saw the players who made up that team from close up. The 'Kapil's Devils' were not super humans, they were just ordinary people with extraordinary skills and an intense desire to be the world's best!

Sandhu's excellent book The Devil's Pack contains a foreword by the Greatest Ever Batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, who remarks: "Winning the World Cup in 1983, against heavy odds, was a huge achievement; perhaps the greatest in the history of Indian Cricket! The significance of that win is that it changed the course of Indian cricket forever.

There were unbelievable scenes in my building and the neighbourhood on that historic night when India won the World Cup. People were dancing on the streets and bursting firecrackers everywhere. As a ten-year-old who knew very little about the ame, I got immersed in the mood and enjoyed the victory with my building friends till the early hours of the morning. Looking back, like me, I am sure there are millions of other Indians whose success stories have revolved round that one great performance."

Co-authored by Austin Coutinho, the book has chapters on each member of the 1983 Prudential World Cup squad, with Sandhu attempting his best efforts to bring out the person behind the cricketer, starting with captain, Kapil Dev, Mohinder Amarnath, Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Syed Kirmani, Madan Lal, Yashpal Sharma, Sandeep Patil, Ravi Shastri, Roger Binny, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Kirti Azad, Sunil Valson and manager P.R.Man Singh.

The black and white and coloured photographs are superb. All in all, a superb publication.