Kapil Dev (born January 6, 1959, in Chandigarh, India) is an Indian cricketer and the greatest pace bowler in his country’s history. He is the only cricketer to have scored over 5,000 runs and taken over 400 wickets in Test (international match) cricket.
Kapil Dev Early Career
Dev made his debut in first-class cricket playing for his state, Haryana. He made it into the Indian national team during the 1978-79 Test series against Pakistan. The total of seven wickets from three matches in a losing cause was not the most spectacular debut but Dev played with reckless energy, showing an impressive outswinger delivery and raw aggression that Indian cricket had not seen in a long while. Kapil Dev was India’s first-ever real fast bowler and would go on to spearhead the country’s bowling attack for the next two decades.
Kapil Dev Bowling Achievements
He ended his Test career, having taken an astonishing 434 wickets in 131 Test matches (a record that was broken in 2000 by Courtney Walsh of Jamaica) including as many as 23 five-wicket matches. In one-day internationals, he took 253 wickets over 225 games.
Batting Highlights
He also made his name as an attacking middle-order batsman. He garnered fame in the 1978-79 Test series against the West Indies, for not only taking seven wickets in the fourth Test, but also scoring 126 runs during the fifth Test towards helping India clinch that series. His aggressive game peppered with long hitting helped score him 5,248 runs in 131 Tests (including eight hundreds) and 3,783 runs in 225 one-day internationals (including one hundred).
Kapil Dev Captaincy and the 1983 World Cup
Kapil was captain of India in 1983; during his captaincy, he earned the team fame as a winner of the Prudential Cup (now renamed as the Cricket World Cup). One of the greatest innings ever played in cricket history was by him when he scored 175 not out against Zimbabwe. But afterwards, he lost captaincy due to irregular performances.
Memorable Matches
Some of the great performances of Kapil are:
- 5 wickets, 28 runs against Australia in 1981.
- 9 West Indies out in a Test match of 1983.
- Rescuing a Test against Australia in 1986 by scoring 119 runs.
- Hitting 4 sixes in a row against England, in 1990.
- In 1994, Kapil broke the record by Richard Hadlee of 431 Test wickets and retired in the same year.
Life after Retirement
From 1999 to 2000, Kapil coached the Indian Cricket Team briefly. The coaching did not last long as he was accused of match-fixing but was later cleared of all charges. Thereafter, he joined the Indian Cricket League (ICL), which led to problems with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). He left ICL in 2012 and reconciled with BCCI.
Awards and Recognition
Kapil has received many honors, including:
- Padma Shri in 1982.
- Padma Bhushan in 1991.
- Indian Cricketer of the Century in 2002.
- Induction into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2010.
Kapil Dev remains a legend in Indian cricket, inspiring players worldwide.
