File photo of Kapil Dev.© AFP
While praising the current players of the Indian cricket team, World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev said that they don’t need his technical inputs in their game. The India great feels that he could only guide the current India players as they are smart enough with their techniques and other aspects of the game. The comments from Dev came ahead of India’s Cricket World Cup 2023 semi-final match against New Zealand. Rohit Sharma-led India entered the knockout stage after winning nine out of nine games in the league stage of the tournament.
“Not really. I don’t want to get into their shoes. I don’t want to tell them ‘play like this, do this or that’. I just want to detach myself and watch them play,” said Kapil Dev on TRS Podcast.
“No (the current players don’t reach out to me for help). The ones who want to reach but the ones who don’t want to, I can’t force them, they don’t have any obligation to do so. These kids are very smart, they don’t need people like us. We are not better than them. We can only guide them to get better,” he added.
Dev played 131 Test matches for India, scoring 5,248 runs and he also picked up 438 wickets in the longest format of the game.
In ODIs, the all-rounder represented the country in 225 games. He picked up 253 wickets and smashed 3,783 runs. Dev scored just one century in the limited overs format — the famous knock of 175 that came against Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup.
In the same tournament, Kapil Dev’s heroics saw India lift their maiden World Cup, beating the West Indies in the final.
The Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awardee called an end to his playing career in 1994.
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