Though Kirmani was dropped ostensibly for performance, there was a rumour that the real reason was that both he and Gavaskar had been approached by the organisers of the Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket.
He had 17 catches and two stumpings against Pakistan in the same season and it equalled Naren Tamhane's Indian record for a single series.
Kirmani won the award for the best wicket keeper in the 1983 Cricket World Cup, his highlight of which was the catch of Faoud Bacchus that he took in the final against the West Indies.
[3] At Bombay the next year, he scored his second hundred in Tests making 102 and adding 235 with Ravi Shastri, still an Indian record for the seventh wicket.
He had just taken an outstanding catch to dismiss Allan Border in a World Series Cup match, when he hurt his leg badly.
[2] A Bollywood film titled 83 released in December 2021 about the event of India's first world cup win at Lords.