1. Kapil Dev is regarded as one of the greatest all-rounders in the history of cricket, he was a fast-medium bowler and a hard-hitting middle-order batsman.
73 Facts About Kapil Dev
1. 2.
Kapil Dev captained the Indian cricket team that won the 1983 Cricket World Cup, becoming the first Indian captain to win the Cricket World Cup.
3.
Kapil Dev is still the youngest captain to win the World Cup for any team.
4.
Kapil Dev retired in 1994, as the first player to take 200 ODI wickets, and holding the world record for the highest number of wickets taken in Test cricket, a record subsequently broken by Courtney Walsh in 2000.
5.
Kapil Dev held the record for the highest individual score scored by a batsman batting at number 5 or lower in ODIs until 2023, when it was superseded by Glenn Maxwell.
6.
Kapil Dev was a part of the Indian squad which won the 1985 World Championship of Cricket.
7.
In 1982, Kapil Dev was awarded the Padma Shri, and in 1991 the Padma Bhushan.
8.
On 11 March 2010, Kapil Dev was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
9.
Kapil Dev Nikhanj was born in Chandigarh, on 6 January 1959, into a Punjabi Hindu family of Ram Lal Nikhanj, a teak merchant and his wife, Rajkumari.
10.
Kapil Dev's family moved to Fazilka after the partition before eventually moving to Chandigarh.
11.
Kapil Dev's paternal family is from Montgomery and his mother was born in Pakpattan but raised in Okara, both now in Punjab, Pakistan.
12.
Kapil Dev made an impressive debut for Haryana in November 1975 against Punjab with a 6-wicket haul, restricting Punjab to just 63 runs and helping Haryana to victory.
13.
Kapil Dev finished the season with 121 wickets in 30 matches.
14.
Kapil Dev scored 2 half-centuries in the group stage matches.
15.
Kapil Dev stood out in the Irani Trophy match, scoring 62 runs and coming in at number 8.
16.
Kapil Dev took 5 catches in the game where Karnataka was defeated by the Rest of India XI.
17.
Kapil Dev was included in the North Zone squad for Deodhar Trophy and Wills Trophy for the first time.
18.
Kapil Dev played his first Test match in the season against Pakistan.
19.
Kapil Dev took center stage in the semi-final against Bengal, where he led his team to a Mammoth score of 605 runs by scoring 141 as well as taking 5 wickets.
20.
Deepak Sharma, Ajay Jadeja, and Chetan Sharma helped Haryana to a score of 522 while Yogendra Bhandari and Kapil Dev restricted Bombay to 410 runs in the first innings.
21.
Kapil Dev played county cricket in England Northamptonshire between 1981 and 1983 and for Worcestershire during the 1984 and 1985 seasons.
22.
Kapil Dev played a total of 40 first-class matches in his county stint, and made 2,312 runs across 64 innings with four centuries and 14 half-centuries.
23.
Kapil Dev made his Test cricket debut in Faisalabad, Pakistan on 16 October 1978.
24.
Kapil Dev startled the Pakistani batsmen with his pace and bouncers that struck their helmets on more than one occasion.
25.
Kapil Dev captured his maiden wicket of Sadiq Mohammad with his trademark outswinger.
26.
Ominous signs of Kapil Dev's liking for England showed up in the ensuring series, his first outside the sub-continent.
27.
Kapil Dev picked up his first 5-wicket haul and all of England's wickets, although it came at a huge cost as England scored a mammoth 633 and won the match comfortably.
28.
Kapil Dev finished the series with 16 wickets though his batting haul of 45 runs was unimpressive.
29.
Kapil Dev established himself as India's premier fast bowler when he took two 5-wicket hauls and ended the home series against Australia with 28 wickets and 212 runs that included a half-century.
30.
Kapil Dev scored 318 runs and took 22 wickets and walked away with the Man of the Series honours.
31.
Kapil Dev finished the 3-match series with 292 runs and 10 Wickets and bagged the Man of the Series again.
32.
Kapil Dev's first assignment as regular captain was the tour of West Indies, where the biggest accomplishment was a lone ODI victory.
33.
Kapil Dev helped curtail the lower order after England lost regular wickets to Binny and Amarnath.
34.
Kapil Dev took 3 wickets as India limited England to 213 and the middle order of Amarnath, Yashpal Sharma and Sandeep Patil ensured victory and entry into the finals to take on the West Indies cricket team who were looking for a hat-trick of World Cup titles.
35.
Richards played one too many aggressive shots when he skied a pull shot from Madan Lal that Kapil Dev caught at deep square leg after running backward for over 20 yards.
36.
Kapil Dev returned to captaincy in 1985 after Gavaskar was sacked following series losses in both ODI and Tests when England toured India.
37.
Kapil Dev was retained as captain for the 1987 Cricket World Cup.
38.
However, after the close of innings, Kapil Dev agreed with the umpires that the score should be increased to 270 as one boundary during the innings had been mistakenly signalled as a four and not a six.
39.
Kapil Dev faced the blame for India's defeat as he holed out to deep mid-wicket triggering a collapse that led to the unexpected loss.
40.
Kapil Dev did not captain India again, although he was the Vice-captain for India's tour to Pakistan in 1989.
41.
Kapil Dev was a right-arm pace bowler noted for his graceful action and potent outswinger, and was India's main strike bowler for most of his career.
42.
Kapil Dev developed a fine inswinging yorker during the 1980s, which he used very effectively against tail-enders.
43.
Kapil Dev noted in the mid-1980s that the only delivery he could not bowl at will was the leg-cutter.
44.
Kapil Dev continued as India's lead pace bowler under a succession of captains in the early 1990s.
45.
Kapil Dev was involved in a notable incident during the Lord's Test Match of 1990, when he hit off-spinner Eddie Hemmings for four sixes in succession to take India past the follow-on target.
46.
Kapil Dev was cited by umpire Dickie Bird as being one of the greatest all-rounders of all time.
47.
Kapil Dev became a valuable batsman in the ODI version of the game, as a pinch-hitter used to accelerate the run-scoring rate, usually in the final ten overs, and was relied upon to stabilise the innings in the event of a collapse.
48.
Kapil Dev played in the 1992 Cricket World Cup, his last, under the captaincy of Mohammad Azharuddin and topped the batting strike rate with 125.80 runs per 100 balls.
49.
Kapil Dev led the bowling attack with younger talents like Javagal Srinath and Manoj Prabhakar, who would eventually succeed him as India's leading pace bowlers.
50.
Kapil Dev retired in 1994, after breaking Richard Hadlee's then standing record for the most Test wickets taken.
51.
Kapil Dev was appointed the Indian national cricket coach in September 1999 following the appointment of Sachin Tendulkar as captain of the Indian team in August 1999.
52.
Under severe pressure from politicians and fans, Kapil Dev resigned as coach in September 2000, after having spent less than one year as the team coach.
53.
India's performance in the coaching stint of Kapil Dev was below-par, winning just one Test match and 9 ODIs.
54.
Kapil Dev was appointed coach of the Indian national cricket team in 1999 succeeding Anshuman Gaekwad.
55.
Kapil Dev's appointment coincided with the second term of captaincy for Tendulkar.
56.
India's ODI series performance matched the Test series in failure as India managed to win just one match against Pakistan and Kapil Dev had to come out in defence of his team.
57.
Allegations against Kapil Dev were based on the testimony of former Indian cricketer Manoj Prabhakar who claimed that Kapil Dev wanted him to throw a match against Pakistan in the 1994 Singer Cup in Colombo.
58.
Former BCCI President Inderjit Singh Bindra revealed on 4 May 2000 that Prabhakar told him that Kapil Dev asked him to throw away the match.
59.
Amidst these inquiries, Kapil Dev appeared for an interview on BBC's Hard Talk with Karan Thapar, where while defending himself against these allegations, he broke down in tears.
60.
Kapil Dev initially did not resign or take a leave of absence, from his coaching responsibilities.
61.
Madhavan concluded that Kapil Dev did not attempt to bribe Prabhakar and none of the players corroborated with Prabhakar's version of the events.
62.
Kapil Dev pipped longtime teammate Gavaskar and crowd favourite Tendulkar to win the award and claimed the moment as "my finest hour".
63.
Kapil Dev slowly returned to cricket as a bowling consultant and was the bowling coach in the preparatory camp prior to India's tour of Pakistan in March 2004.
64.
On 21 August 2007, Kapil Dev was removed from the chairmanship of the National Cricket Academy, a day after he addressed a formal press conference of the new Indian Cricket League.
65.
On 25 July 2012 Kapil Dev resigned from ICL and continued to support BCCI, thereby paving way to get back into the BCCI fold.
66.
Kapil Dev was appointed as first chancellor of the Sports University of Haryana in 2019.
67.
Kapil Dev married Romi Bhatia in 1980 with whom he has a daughter, Amiya Kapil Dev, born on 16 January 1996.
68.
Kapil Dev was the only Asian founding member of Laureus Foundation in 2000.
69.
Kapil Dev pledged his organs during an event organised by Delhi Urological Society on 31 January 2014 at the Airport Authority of India, Officers Club, New Delhi.
70.
On 23 October 2020, Kapil Dev suffered a heart attack and was hospitalised.
71.
Kapil Dev underwent an emergency coronary angioplasty at a hospital in Delhi.
72.
Kapil Dev has released a song "One India My India" with Shailendra Singh.
73.
The film features Ranveer Singh as Dev and is produced by Anurag Kashyap and Kapil Dev has a cameo as a spectator.