The entire Indian cricket lovers in India and across the world are in a state of shock when they heard that the former Team India captain Kapil Dev suffered a heart attack and he was immediately hospitalized. His health is in a stable condition after underwent an angioplasty.
Kapil Dev joined the Indian national team for a 1978–1979 Test series against Pakistan and he represented India in 131 Tests, amassed 5,248 runs and picked up 434 wickets. Kapil Dev is the best known for his inspirational leadership capability and an all rounder capability to bowl and bat.
61 years old Kapil Dev was a former Indian Cricket Captain and a legendary Indian Cricketer who was the main instrumental in winning the one day cricket world cup for India in 1983. Kapil Dev was naturally aggressive player and in many occasions, his aggressive batting and bowling helped Indian team when they were in a difficult situations.
He also known as “Haryana Hurricane”. He is credited in putting India on the world map after Kapil Dev lead Indian cricket team defeated the mighty West Indies in the 1983 World Cup final in Lord’s as India won their first-ever World Cup trophy.
During this world cup tournament, to reach at Semi Final, Indian team was in a “must match win” situation against Zimbabwe. India batted first and within a shorter period, five recognized Indian batsmen returned back to pavilion after taking 17 runs only. But the spirited and determined Kapil Dev displayed a classic performance and taken a massive 175 runs in 138 balls against Zimbabwe and set a massive target of 267 run to Zimbabwe for winning the match. This huge target proved to be too much for Zimbabwe and India eventually won the match by 31 runs.
Kapil Dev’s sterling batting performance was the cornerstone that led to India’s surprise triumph of the World Cup in 1983. While taking 175 runs, he hit 16 huge sixes and 6 boundaries.
India and West Indies played the final match of the Prudential Cup at Lord’s on 25 June 1983 and the same was the third consecutive World Cup final appearance for West Indies. Whereas, Indian team was playing their first ever final and they defeated West Indies by a margin of 43 runs and won the world cup title first time.
In this tournament, Kapil Dev became the first Indian batsman to score an ODI hundred. By displaying sterling batting performance with bat and ball, Kapil Dev created much needed confidence and momentum to the team that has helped the team to win the first ever ODI cricket world cup and to create the history.
As an all-rounder, Kapil Dev has played 225 ODIs for India and scored 3,783 runs and picked up 253 wickets. His exceptional moment in the cricket game came in 1983 when Kapil Dev led India and won their first-ever World Cup.
India has produced many cricket all-rounders in different time. But Kapil Dev was an exceptional player who was able to perform as per the circumstances, conditions and the cricket lovers expectations.
During his cricket playing era, Indian pitches were considered graveyard for the fast bowlers and the fast bowlers were not able to get any support from the spin friendly Indian pitches. Because of his hard work and his dead accuracy in inswing bowling helped Kapil Dev to succeed well in the spin friendly pitches in India.
Kapil Dev was the youngest Test Player in the history of international cricket to achieve the all-round of 1000 runs and 100 wickets in 25 matches at the age of 21 years. He was a disciplined medium fast bowler and a good batsman too.
During his 225 One Day International (ODI) cricket match career he seldom bowled no ball which is unimaginable to any other international cricket players.
Kapil Dev is the greatest cricketer and a finest alrounder ever produced by india and he retired from the International cricket in 1994. After his retirement, many years India could not find a suitable all rounder like Kapil Dev.
He was a right arm pace bowler, main strike bowler, potent out swinger and a talented batsman. He successfully developed a fine in swinging Yorker and the same he was utilizing effectively against his opponents.
During his 16 years international cricket career, he was always been extremely fit and never missed a match due to fitness issues. Nobody is having this kind of record as Kapil Dev is having. He was naturally strong and flexible and was following the entire fitness laws. His action was very smooth and simple that was automatically generating outswing naturally.
With effect from October 1999 to August 2000 he served as a head coach of the Indian cricket team. Considering his vast contributions towards Indian cricket, Kapil Dev was commissioned as an honorary Lieutenant Colonel of the Indian Territorial Army on Sept 24, 2008.
Kapil Dev considered to be one of the greatest cricket all-rounders of all times. His widespread contributions towards Indian cricket will be remembered forever.
