Rustic and charming, the Indian Cricketer of the Century Kapil Dev, refuses to get out in the game of life.
The hazel eyes stare intensely as he relates a funny incident. Kapil Dev has recently been awarded the Wisden Indian Cricketer of the Century Award, but he has no qualms in declaring that he was once mistaken to be a servant.
His sister had pleaded with him to go with her to the repair shop, to get her cycle back on its wheels. “The cycle repairer told my sister, ‘You may go home and leave the servant behind with the cycle’.” That’s the man for whom there is no jawaab !
OUT-WITTING HIMSELF Besides his deadly yorkers and in-swingers, this cricketer-turned-golfer-turned-TV presenter, also has the amazing ability to hold sway and make a dull, boring affair into one long laugh fest — courtesy his self-deprecating wit. With a rustic accent and an insistence on speaking English without articles or agreement, the bearded entertainer is endearingly vulnerable.
The man known to be a magnet to women, reveals rather unassumingly, that he had received film offers before, but “Yaar, I look in my mirror every morning, and I think, ‘get out of here’!” The secret of his success, he believes, lies in his having “less brain. We people who don’t think too much just go and play and come back.”
HOWZZAT? Kaps is definitely not interested in politics and bowls a googly when he says, “No politics — too many ‘namaskaars’!” But like politicians, he now sports a tikka on his forehead and his take on that one: “I am wearing a tikka , to utaro nazar . My mother advised me after the golf ball hit my head. And now we know I have a brain. I don’t have to ask anybody about it.”
HOPPING MAD But that’s the nicer side of Kapil Dev.
He was raging mad as he let out a fusillade of verbal volleys at Manoj Prabhakar who accused him of rigging cricket matches — an accusation that rocked the cricket world. “What credibility does he (Manoj Prabhakar) have?’’ fumed Kapil. “ Maa ka dudh piya hoon, bakri ka nahi. Dum hai to samne aa kar baat kare... peeth mein khanzar na bhok, ” said a visibly upset Kapil Dev.
IT raids, media hounding and the courts... Who can forget the beefy six-footer breaking down on Karan Thapar’s ‘Hard Talk’ a couple of years ago? Tears flowed unabashedly. Was this the same Haryana Hurricane who had surpassed all bowlers by taking 434 wickets, bettering Richard Hadlee in his last series in 1993/94?
CLEAN BOWLED Powerfully built, Kapil Dev did what few Indian seamers have ever been able to do — bowl fast and take wickets by the hatful. In 1990, he was batting when India required 24 runs to save the follow-on against England at Lord’s with Narendra Hirwani at the other end, and four balls of an Eddie Hemmings’ over remaining. The solution? Four balls, four sixes. Problem solved.
Indeed, Kapil da jawab nahin, if only because he proved everyone wrong, especially those who insisted that only spin could win — that no quality pacer could ever emerge from the Indian dust-bowls. As Sunil Gavaskar once said: “With Kapil’s example before them, boys in the street are walking to their marks purposefully and hurling the ball quickly at the opposing batsman.”
What differentiated Kapil from his contemporaries was his passion for the game. Former West Indies captain Viv Richards, the man they call the ‘King’ opines: “The passion with which Kapil performed on the field can only come when you take an immense pride in playing for your country.”
A Complete Cricketer