Read more features from the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack
Previous Almanack feature: Christopher Martin-Jenkins: Legend of the Major – a tribute by Mike Selvey
Kapil Dev was India’s greatest all-rounder and part of a quintet that dominated the game in the 1980s. In the 1995 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, Mike Selvey marked his retirement.
Perhaps the hardest thing to appreciate about Kapil Dev finally exchanging his cricket box for the TV commentary box is the fact that he was only 35 years old when he did so. Well, give or take a bit maybe: he might be a touch more geriatric than that; it is often suggested that at the time he was born, whenever that was, it was not necessarily the custom in northern India to register the year of birth. But that misses the point: however old he was, he seemed to have been around for a lot longer, prancing in to shore up the Indian attack and joyfully retrieving an innings with uninhibited squeaky-clean hitting. An Indian team without him will never seem quite the same.
And yet perhaps his finest moment came not in a Test but in a limited-overs international against Zimbabwe, not even a Test-playing nation then, at, improbably enough, Tunbridge Wells. In 1983, it was Kapil’s lot to lead India in the World Cup, and he found himself at the crease on a damp pitch, with the scoreboard reading 17-5. He was to play what he has described as the innings of a lifetime, scoring an unbeaten 175 as India reached 266-8 and went on to win the game.
Eventually, they progressed to the final at Lord’s where, against all the odds, they beat West Indies, then arguably the most potent cricket force ever to set foot on the ground. Kapil and India showed they could be taken, and an illusion was shattered: West Indies have not won the World Cup since.
