Kapil Dev - Great in India only?

[coolsoul]

Not very quick but great swinger who almost singlehandedly won India the copa 83.

Was he overrated in India or underrated worldwide or both?

Imran once said about him that had he born in West Indies, he wont have played any test/ODI. Good records(bat and bowl deptt) and he led India to many victories but still I feel that he was not awarded the praise what he deserved worldwide. what do you guys say?

 

[Matt79]

Badly underrated IMO - possibly because he career coincided with Imran, Botham and Hadlee. Bowled as the only decent quick in his team on tracks that generally never suited him and was lionhearted about bowling on and on without support. Eventually the number of overs he had to bowl, as well as batting, took their toll and his bowling declined. Just outside the top bracket of allrounders for mine, but he's a great for mine.

 

[Arjun]

Kapil Dev was a great player for India, and every genuine fan of Indian cricket knows that. At a time when Indian seamers were meat and drink for batsmen and more active as ball-rollers for their spin teammates, he took an initiative to bowl fast. One stump in a hot plain of Haryana and he got going. At a time when the spin quartet was on its way out, and Zaheer smashed them into retirement, Kapil stepped in and had him out quickly. He wasn't just the team's premier seamer and also their top bowler, he also scored vital runs. The origin of that, ironically, was captain Gavaskar dropping him for bad batting! That 175 against Zimbabwe from a dreadful start was legendary.

Yes, his figures (average in particular) were not that great, but being head and shoulders above every other seamer and one of very few all-rounders in action, he had to carry on a lot longer. Many think he did the country a dis-service by carrying on, but there was no promising seamer or all-rounder to replace him then. Moreover, the selections were warped, and stuck in the 70's, playing three spinners in home matches, which had him playing a lot longer. A few well-versed fans and experts say, had he been playing for England or (probably) New Zealand, he would have had better figures at the top level.

 

[Jono]

Looks like Freddy Mercury as SL once pointed out, that alone projects him to greatness.

 

[pasag]

Looks like Freddy Mercury as SL once pointed out, that alone projects him to greatness.

 

[Dasa]

Looks like Freddy Mercury as SL once pointed out, that alone projects him to greatness.

Which one is which?

 

[archie mac]

Great player, and no all time Indian side should be selected without him

 

[C_C]

Kapil Dev was the best 'pure' allrounder of his era : Hadlee was a bowling allrounder throughout, Imran was a bowling allrounder at first and then batting allrounder near the end.
Overall, i'd put him 2nd best after Imran amongst the 'four big name' allrounders of the 70s and 80s. His quality of bowling is evident from his record against the windies - against whom he bowled on some of the least friendly surfaces with zero backup.
Fittest cricketer ever really. Brilliant one-day player too- best amongst the allrounders of that era. Locked in for #7 spot in alltime ODIs for me.

 

[Richard]

Not very quick but great swinger who almost singlehandedly won India the copa 83.

Was he overrated in India or underrated worldwide or both?

Imran once said about him that had he born in West Indies, he wont have played any test/ODI. Good records(bat and bowl deptt) and he led India to many victories but still I feel that he was not awarded the praise what he deserved worldwide. what do you guys say?

There are many hundred cricketers of that era who wouldn't have played for WI had they been born there.

That doesn't mean anything.

As mentioned, Kapil was much the best all-rounder of the time - and only a few (Cairns, White briefly, Kallis for a few years, Flintoff in the last 3 years) have matched him since. Hadlee wasn't, for me, an all-rounder, he was a magnificent bowler who also happened to be a pretty good lower-order batsman, Imran was only an out-and-out all-rounder for a relatively short time, and Botham, obviously, was far better for a time and poor for an equal amount later.

 

[rodzilla1010]

I think Kapil was a great player and he is rated as a great. ...obviosly not in the same class as Imran or Sobers...but he is probably India's MVP..worldwide, well he is considered one of the best.

He wasnt the best, so why would anyone say that too....i dont think we should undermine what he did for India nor glorify him as the greatest allrounder ever

 

[rodzilla1010]

Imran once said about him that had he born in West Indies, he wont have played any test/ODI.

Viv Richard once said about him that the trick to tackle Kapil Dev is to play him like a spinner.

I think both of them were just jealous

 

[Swervy]

oooh, we have had similar discussions over the years in here.

This is my personal opinion:

Of the Big 4, at each players peaks, Dev was the worst of the 4 bowling, and when Botham lost the bowling plot, Hadlee and Imran were still miles better with the ball.

With the bat, at each players batting peak, Dev ranks 3rd (behind Imran and Botham).

But overall, Dev was much more like Botham than say Imran. Both Dev and Botham could change games in a very short space of time with the bat, Imran very very rarely did.

So yeah, Dev was obviously a star player, who happened to play at a time which was about as rich in the all-rounder stakes as the game has ever been.
If Dev at his best were playing now, I dare say he would be hovering around Flintoff, if not surpassing Flintoff as number one all rounder in the world (although I would put Freddie above Dev in both batting and bowling when he is at his very very best)

 

[Sanz]

Viv Richard once said about him that the trick to tackle Kapil Dev is to play him like a spinner.

I think both of them were just jealous

I dont think Viv ever made such a statement and even if he did I would like to know the context. Even Imran, I dont remember him saying such a thing.

 

[Fusion]

I dont think Viv ever made such a statement and even if he did I would like to know the context. Even Imran, I dont remember him saying such a thing.

All the statements that I recall of Imran towards Kapil and Gavaskar (the 2 prominent Indian superstars of the time) have been very complimentary. I'd be surprised if Imran had said something derogatory about Kapil.

Personally, Kapil has always been one of my favorites players. He may be a little under-rated, solely due to the fact that he played in the era of the great all-rounders. However, a class player and a joy to watch.

 

[adharcric]

Quite underrated outside of India and slightly overrated in India. He was far better than the records indicate.

 

[Richard]

Well - better than the simplistic his-batting-average-was-X-his-bowling-average-was-X records suggest, yeah.

If you look deeper, however, as almost always, you can see why he was rather better than that.

 

[adharcric]

Richard, where would you put Kapil in a list of the greatest bowlers (purely bowling) of all-time?

 

[Richard]

I don't like the all-time analogy, nor the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-etc. sort of thing so...

Probably in the Patrick Patterson, Max Walker, Chris Old sort of category, TBH. The good-but-not-brilliant ones. Not quite in the Jason Gillespie and Bob Willis very-very-damn-good-in-the-modern-era category.

Certainly without doubt India's greatest seamer of the modern era (would be fruitless to compare to the Nissars and Amar Singhs) and one who contributed more (purely with the ball) to Indian cricket than most, mind.

 

[adharcric]

I feel Kapil is underrated as a bowler - good chance he would've averaged 25 if he was playing somewhere else. Doesn't help to be the only capable seamer in a subcontinental team that isn't exactly top-class in the field either. As far as I know, every other bowler who averaged 25 or less is rated very highly. Gillespie and Willis > Kapil? Not sure.

 

[Richard]

Sure, Kapil might have averaged 25 had he been English or Kiwi, say (though that's only a might). The likes of Fazal, Imran, Wasim, etc. managed, though, very impressive averages despite being from the subcontinent (and at a bash I'd guess typical Pakistani pitches tended to offer even less assistance to seamers than typical Indian ones).

Kapil managed to wring more from the subcontinent than most, but not enough to be considered anything more, IMO, than good.