On 2nd April, India repeated history by winning the World Cup after 28 long years. Under the leadership of MS Dhoni, India defeated Sri Lanka handsomely.
MS Dhoni remained unbeaten on 91 as India successfully chased down 275 against Sri Lanka at the Wankhede stadium to lift the World Cup in 2011 after a gap of 28 years.
Sachin Tendulkar holds an array of individual records in the World Cup. He scored 2278 runs in the world cup 2011 with 6 centuries and 15 fifties in five different ICC Cricket World Cups (1992, 1996, 2003, 2007, 2011)
Kapil Dev Ramlal Nikhanj is a former leading cricketer and captain of the Indian national cricket team. He was born on 6th January 1959 in Chandigarh. He is better known from his short name as Kapil Dev. He was famously known from his nickname "Haryana Hurricane".
Kapil Dev was right handed batsman and right arm fast medium bowler. He was valued as one of the greatest cricket players and all rounder for all time.
He debuted the Test Cricket with a match played against Pakistan at Faisalabad in the year 1978. During the 3rd Test match played at Karachi, he scored the fasted half-century made by any Indian cricketer off just 33 balls.
Kapil’s One Day International (ODI) debut was made on 1st of October 1978 in a match played against Pakistan at Quetta. He scored 13 runs and took 1 wicket giving 27 runs in the match. He made his last one day international debut against West Indies in year 1994.
Kapil Dev had great skills of aggressive bating, and he was a main strike bowler through most of his careers. He captained India winning cricket world cup of the year 1983. He has operated as coach to the Indian cricket team for 10 months between October 1999 and August 2000, but resigned after match fixing allegations were imposed upon him.
In his Test Cricket career, Kapil Dev played 131 Test matches in which he scored 5248 runs with a Batting Average of 31.05 runs. His highest score was 163 runs. As far as bowling is concerned, he took 434 wickets in the Test Cricket, and gave away 12867 runs with an average of 29.64 runs.
Kapil played 225 ODI matches throughout his career, and scored 3783 runs with an average of 23.79 runs, his highest score being 175 not out. He took 252 wickets, and gave 6945 runs with an average of 27.45 runs in his ODI career.
Kapil Dev wedded to Romi in the year 1980, and they have a daughter Amiya Dev.
Kapil Dev awarded "Indian Cricketer of the Century" by Wisden in the year 2002. He was radically noted for his right arm pace bowling and exceptional out swinger.
He broke Richard Hadlee's record of 431 wickets in Test cricket and scored first ODI century by an Indian. Kapil Dev played an excellent role in difficult situations and helped to the Indian cricket team to attack against opponent.
He has been conferred upon with Arjuna Award, Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awards by the Government of India.
1983 World Cup winning captain Kapil Dev feels comments of Indian cricketers that they want to win the Cup for Sachin Tendulkar is just media hype. Kapil hoped it is the batting maestro who would win the World Cup for India.
"'We want to win for Sachin. We want to win for Sachin.' It's the media which is saying again and again. We all want to win. Of course Sachin wants to win. But if you keep on asking everybody if Sachin's dream will come true what will they say? Everybody's dream is same," said Kapil Dev.
Kapil felt depending on one individual will have an adverse effect on the team.
"I as a cricketer would not like to depend on one person. At the end of the day it's a team game and the team has to win together," Kapil said.
"When you start depending on one player and if anything goes wrong with him your team chokes. I think he has to do it for us. He has to perform for us so that we can cheer for him," he added.
Indian players have produced numerous thrilling moments on the cricket field over the years.
But few could match that slice of magic which Kapil Dev created at Lord’s nearly 28 years back - a stunner of a catch to dismiss Viv Richards that eventually culminated in India’s triumph in the final.
Having sauntered to a measly 183, India would not have had any hopes of restricting the powerful West Indian batting line-up. Balwinder Sandhu’s in-cutter rearranged Gordon Greendige’s woodwork early in the innings, giving India a glimmer of hope. But Desmond Haynes and Richards shared a 45-run alliance for the second wicket, entirely dominated by the latter, and that seemed to douse India’s spirits.
Just as Kapil was contemplating taking off Madan Lal, who had dismissed Haynes earlier, the Delhi medium-pacer requested his captain to give him one more over. Kapil’s decision to give Maddipa (that's how Madan Lal is referred in cricketing community) that extra over changed the course of the match.
Richards had already smashed seven fours during his frenzied 33 and had show little hesitation in latching on to another short ball offered by Madan. His pull shot seemed to be travel to safety but Kapil ran and ran and ran some 20 yards backwards from mid-wicket to pouch a memorable catch that helped India make further inroads into the West Indian line-up.
"I still don't know from where did he (Kapil) come to take that catch. When Kapil was running back waving to nearest fielder to get out of his way, I knew my time was over," was how Richards recollected about a catch that turned out to be one of the best in the history of World Cup. Richards was undoubtedly the most destructive player during that time.
Indeeded, it was the desire to win that drove Kapil and Co to the title in 1983.
Kapil dev scored an unbeaten 175 against Zimbabwe when India was reeling at 17 for 5. This was a match that India had to win to enter the semi-final.
His majestic innings was a turn around for India in the 1983 World cup. Kapil Dev hit 175 runs in just 138 balls, with 16 fours and 6 sixes as India leading India to victory.
Unfortunately, the match was not covered on TV nor is there any video recording of this great innings, because of a strike by BBC technical workers.
