Kapil was awarded with a Lifetime achievement award 2 days back:: Do we have to wait until he is 70/80 to give him Bharat-Ratna?

Are you aware that once India (in England) needed 24 runs to avoid a follow-on. As the 9th wicket fell, Hirwani (max # of ducks!) was the next batsman. After 2 balls on the Off-spinner’s over, Kapil asked the umpire ’how many balls’ 4 was the answer. He was playing on 49?, The next ball: SIX, by a comfortable margin standing from the crease, the next ball: one more SIX, just managed to get that over the ropes.

The captain & the bowler realized what he was trying to do. More players sent to the boundary, The next ’very fast’ ball..a converted SIX over long on..The last bowl, faster delivery out side off..Kapil hit it charging down the pitch way out side the ground. The follow-on was saved!! The next ball of the next over: Hirwani LBW !!

This single incidence is the testimony the way Kapil played cricket! His warm hearted nature, his BIG smile, his style of getting his collar back was all as appreacited as his cricket. He *always* enjoyed playing the game & couldn’t have been anything else than a cricketer!

India won the 1983 under kapil’s able lead-by-example captainship. He had a lion’s share due to his qualifying innings of 175* against Zimbabwe when we were struggling at 17 runs for 5 wickets! This was the highest score in ODIs until Richards scored 189 against Engladn & then again 181 in 87-World-Cup.

Even in 1984 Benson & Hedges world-series Kapil had a significant share with several early strikes along with Binny & also his match-winning 60+ runs in the Semi-Final along with Dilip. Match had completely slipped away (NZ) due to Azar & Shastri’s ULTRA-slow partnership that frustrated the complete nation!! It was the day when Kapil smashed EVERYBODY including great Hadlee out of the park. One of his Natraj-shots was so effective, Ritchie Benaud said: ’That shot almost carried to the longest boundary of the world’.

Kapil came in the Indian team at the age of 18/19 when Bedi, Prasanna, Chandra were at the fag end of their career. Sunil did promote Kapil a lot initially. He was stunned to see Kapil is a Ranji game where he was bowling his ’tej’ outswingers. Kapil was brought in the team as a fast bowler. That time Eknath Solkar used to open for India (what a pity!).
 
It was amazing for the nation to see someone so charged, gunning down at great speed towards the batsman. Kapil was a hero even before he could take his first wicket in Pakistan. His run-up with some hard actions, his natural jump at the end & the side on action which promoted out swing was all the talk of the town. Commentators were soon short of the adjectives & searched for the new adjectives to describe the newcomer.

Until Waqar in 90s, Kapil had the record of getting to 100 wickets faster (18 tests?) than anyone before. He also soon became on of the most distinguished players to get 100W/1000runs; 200/2000 & also the only one player to get to 400w & 5000 runs. He also took 9 wickets against WI in Ahemedabad.

His bowling in Aus series in 1991 & also the World-Cup was a great experience. After almost 3 years he had gotten back his out-swinger & he was bowling **my god** deliveries. He got stalwarts like Border, Boon, Marsh, Jones out on these deliveries. At times, he used to get the ball to pitch on middle-leg stump & used to up-root the off-stump! Serious-stuff. Border, Boon, Jones HAD to confess that they had never played outswinger like those in their life! His out-swinger was simply put one of the best in the history of the cricket world.

Get this fact: Craig McDermott (in prime stage of his career) in that series in 5 tests got 29 wickets of Indian Batsmen, in front of 2 Australian umpires(!) where Kapil got 25 wickets of Aus batsman in front of Aus umpires! (where countless LBW appeals were turned down). Kapil was criticized for ’being finished’ at that time! It’s true: The phoenix indeed rises from it own ash!

The biggest virtue of Kapil Dev was his go-getter attitude. He was always charged with both short & long term goals. This reflected in his captainship too, although at times his some of the tactics were questionable & not completely thought out. As many pundits have put: he was the ’most natural cricketer’ of all times, very much like Sir Gary Sobers. Imran Khan ever today says that Kapil could have achieved a LOT with the bat too if he had taken it a little seriously.

Differences With Sunil: Kapil was always called as the ’big-heart’ player from India by the opponents.He always had a rough-edge to his enthusiastic & warm-hearted, flamboyant nature. I guess he was not as ’well-read’ as Gavaskar. All these properties along with natural appetite for captainship contributed to some tense moments between them.

As I mentioned in my review on Sunil, I think Sunil could have been a little more accommodating at times given that Kapil was younger to him. Maybe there is more that we don’t know but this is just my opinion that Gavaskar was a little Khadus at times. (This is tough thing to discuss given we do not know many thing!). Kapil also could have been a little more diplomatic while dealing with Sunil (comments like ’I will marry Sunil is he changes sex’ to show their differences were over also gives us an idea the kind of warm-hearted but a ’little’ rough Kapil was! :) (Of course this is one more reason masses loved him whereas critics, well, criticized!).:) Wanda Nahi!

Indian management kept going back & forth between Kapil & Sunil for the captainship & I think it was not at all good for the Indian cricket. It started unhealthy things where they thought that the other wasn’t the best under his captainship. (It was of course never the case!)

What makes me appreciate Kapil more as a bowler is that he played 60% of the tests in India on these DEAD pitches where there was no help to fast bowlers. Richard Hadlee used to avoid Indian series due to this factor along with the heat! (Family matter as formal reasons). He also played ODIs & adjusted to ODI bowling unlike Richard Hadlee who used to get hit by Chetan Sharma for 4 consecutive 4s but never improvised woth yorkers etc. Kapil at a time was front-runner in both test & ODI wickets.

In batting also, he has centuries against the best of the attacks. Against WI, Aus, SA (when even Sachin found it difficult) & what not. His century in the TIED-1987 Chennai Test not only saved us the follow-on against Aus but we almost won it!! (Srikanth’s memory: Kapil gave a mouthful to all the seniors the way they got out hitting in the first innings. The next day Kapil hit Waugh 3 fours in the FIRST over!! All these players were laughing like crazy in disbelief) I just wish he had taken batting more seriously & improved his consistency as Imran did in the 80s when he was not allowed to bowl at all.

I was highly disappointed & was almost heart-broken when Prabhakar accused Kapil instead of Azar! I had hoped that he was not guilty & glad that he came out of that free. I am not sure about others but I would have found it very difficult to digest.

Finally Want to say only one thing:

BHARAT-Ratna Kapil D

Who is your favorite sports player in this field?

Imran Khan Niyazi