Biography
Believe it or not, this tall, muscular, forever smiling lad from Chandigarh, at a camp for emerging Indian cricketers, was denied extra food during lunch. When asked by the camp authorities why he requested for more than the standard quota, he stated that being a fast bowler he needs to eat more to maintain stamina. The camp burst into laughter, with the response from the coaches being "We don't produce fast-bowlers in India". Rest as the cliche goes is history.
Starting from his debut in 1978, where he delivered a bouncer to arch-rivals Pakistan's opening batsmen, till his retirement in 1994, Kapil Dev sent back several of cricket history's best batsmen against pace bowling back to the pavilion, even on the unhelpful wickets of his home country, displaying his ability to think players out with a combination of consistent line and length as well as swinging the ball both inside and outside of the wicket. This formed the core of his outstanding tally of 434 test and 253 ODI scalps, both stats being world records at the time of him bowing out.
And if the bowling alone wasn't enough, his batting displays became box-office attractions the world over, particularly against the best bowling attacks of his generation. Although always criticized for just enjoying batting in a destructive mode rather than being an accumulator like his cross border rival Imran Khan, he did more than enough to reach over 5000 runs with 8 centuries, 3 of which came outside the subcontinent. And his only ODI ton may very well arguably be the greatest innings in the history of the format, with his 175* against Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup won the match, saved India from crashing out of the Group Stages unlike the previous two editions and above all India beat the mighty West Indies to clinch their first ever ICC tournament. An icing on the cake, Kapil happened to be the captain of this side which pulled off the impossible, his contributions being in both batting and bowling as well as fielding, as evidenced during the finals by his backwards running catch to dismiss Sir Viv Richards and the blinder to get rid of West Indian captain Clive Lloyd.
His tenure as a coach of the national team, however, was mediocre to say the least and allegations of match-fixing were raised against him by former teammate Manoj Prabhakar, forcing him to disappear from public life for a while. Cleared of all charges after thorough investigation, Kapil returned to public eye and in 2002 was voted by Wisden as India's "Cricketer Of The 20th Century" ahead of long time teammate Sunil Gavaskar and crowd favorite Sachin Tendulkar, the honor presented to him by his friend and batting legend Sir Vivian Richards.
Today, Kapil Dev continues to remain a revered figure in the international cricket community, with his name always popping up whenever someone thinks of the term "all-rounder" and is unsurprisingly a prominent guest lecturer on leadership and team management at events held on several prominent university and college campuses in India.
God bless the "Haryana Hurricane".
