In an era where Indian cricket team is blessed with some astonishing talent, especially a variety of pace bowling options and some of them among the very best in the world, there was a time when the India team was struggling to produce even one world class fast bowler. Indian cricket’s growth started in the 1970s but those success were primarily because of the batting strength. And that’s when we had Kapil Dev step in.
Indian never really had a genuine fast bowler until Kapil Dev arrived at the international scene. Kapil went ahead to become one of the finest fast bowlers in the world and also broke Richard Hadlee’s then orld record for Test wickets.
In a recent interview, India’s first World Cup-winning captain recalled an incident that made him more determined to become a pacer.
“The real change happened when I went for the under 19 camp. You know in the camps, sometimes officials come hard at you. So I had some argument with an official. He said ‘What do you do?’, I said ‘I’m a fast bowler’. ‘India never had a fast bowler,’ was his reply. So rather than encouraging, they discouraged me. I took up the challenge and said to myself, ‘One day I will become a fast bowler to show him, to prove him wrong’. I always liked to prove certain negative people wrong and that’s how the fast bowling started,” Kapil told former India opener and current women’s team coach WV Raman in a YouTube interview.
Kapil Dev scored 5248 runs and picked up 434 wickets in 131 Tests for India. In one-day internationals he picked up 253 wickets and scored 3783 runs. Kapil has coached the Indian cricket team in the 1990s and is an established cricket commentator.
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