Kapil Dev’s appeal as a player lay not as much in his game as in his gladiatorial instincts. India have yet to find an answer to Kapil Dev a quarter of a century after the allrounder hung up his boots.
Sunil Gavaskar was the Little Master, but his records were obliterated by the Sachin Tendulkar, who was followed by Virat Kohli, and now the rising star is Rohit Sharma – batsmen come and go, but India has yet to find an answer to Kapil Dev a quarter-century after the allrounder retired.
It was perhaps the best hour in Indian cricket when ‘Kapil’s Devils’ won the 1983 World Cup in the United Kingdom, despite cricket fans dismissing our prospects and bookmakers giving India odds of 66:1. We had only won one game in the previous two World Cups, and that was against East Africa.
Half of the Indian squad lacked confidence; assuming it would be a brief visit, they had booked tickets from London for a tour of the United States long before the final.
But we’ll get to that later. Kapil’s attraction as a player stemmed from his gladiatorial tendencies more than his skill. He was a hard competitor and courageous opponent with the ball, bat, or even as a fielder. You were prepared for the unexpected from him.
Every great player has that X element, but Kapil had three. Who can forget his spectacular 5/28 session against Australia in 1980-81, bowled with a strapped thigh and painkillers, which helped India draw a Test series for the first time in Australia? Who can forget his four sixes in a row batting with the last man in 1990, which helped India escape a follow-on at Lord’s?
When ‘Master Blaster’ Vivian Richards tried to knock Madan Lal out of the ground in the World Cup final, Kapil, who had stationed himself at short midwicket, ran back a good 20 yards, following the ball and judging it to perfection.
Until then, chasing a meagre 184 for victory in 60 overs appeared to be a formality for the two-time champions West Indies, who were coasting along at 57 for the loss of two wickets, with Richards scorching away on 33 runs off 27 balls.
Indeed, the disrespect with which he had despatched Madan Lal to the fence three times in his previous over prompted the TV pundit to declare that ‘it is curtains for India’. Kapil’s choice to stick with Madan Lal – a story in and of itself -‘ and his own Herculean effort in the outfield proved decisive.
Kapil was regarded as unique from the start. The radio commentary in December 1978, when the 19-year-old debutant smashed India’s quickest Test half-century off 33 balls, with two sixes, is unforgettable.
In Karachi, he was up against Imran Khan and Sarfaraz Nawaz. The ‘Hurricane from Haryana’ was just getting started. He went on to become the first player in history to have both 4,000 Test runs and 400 Test wickets.
Kapil was one of the seven children of a successful wood trader who relocated in Chandigarh after Partition. He attended DAV school but spent most of his time at Desh Prem Azad’s Sector 16 cricket academy, where he also trained Chetan Sharma, Ashok Malhotra, and Yograj Singh.
Kapil recalled how the disciplinarian once barred him from using the nets for three days because he was 20 minutes late for a practise session.
Kapil matured so quickly under Azad that the first test match he witnessed was the one he played in, on October 16, 1978, in Faisalabad, Pakistan. During that journey, he paid a special visit to his ancestral hamlet Shah Yakka in Montgomery, now Sahiwal, and was greeted warmly by the inhabitants, who remembered his parents, Ram Lal Nikhanj and Raj Kumari Lajwanti, fondly.
Kapil Dev was a member of the Fab Four, along with Ian Botham, Imran Khan, and Richard Hadlee, during the golden period of allrounders. Kapil was the least among them statistically, scoring 31 runs on average and capturing a wicket every 29 balls in tests. Imran Khan, with equivalent values of 37 and 22, was the highest performance based only on numbers.
Unlike the others, however, Kapil worked alone – and as a workhorse – on lifeless Indian surfaces.
The Indian all-rounder, named Wisden’s ‘Indian Cricketer of the Century’ in 2002, played 131 Tests practically without a break throughout a 16-year career, an incredible performance for injury-prone fast bowlers.
Kapil Dev had one of the finest fast bowling spells in history against the West Indies in Ahmedabad in November 1983. He collected 9 for 83 in 30.3 overs while bowling unchanged.
In comparison, fast bowlers now receive a break every 4-5 overs. Kapil himself believed that, while he was not the best of the Fab Four, he was a better athlete than all three together, never suffering an injury during his whole career and retiring in 1994 at the age of 35.
Returning to the 1983 World Cup, Kapil Dev ended with 303 runs at an average of 60 in eight matches and 12 wickets at an average of 20.
However, all the world remembers is his 175 not out against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells when India was on the verge of collapse, with half the squad in the pavilion and only 17 runs on the board.
Kapil’s first fifty came in 26 overs, his second in 13, and his third in only nine overs. Despite the fact that there were no circle or field limits back then, he smacked six sixes and 17 boundaries.
India reached 266 for eight after the captain’s innings.
The Zimbabweans put up a valiant fight, but the Indians had their tails up and won by 31 runs. The match, though, that fully demonstrated why cricket is a game of magnificent uncertainty was still to come. David defeating Goliath in the last battle is history.
India’s victory sparked a million aspirations, including those of a young man named Sachin Tendulkar and a cricket administrator named Jagmohan Dalmiya.
1983 changed the course of not just Indian cricket but also global cricket, all because a young captain, only 24, refused to let anything stand in the way of his goal.
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