On Monday, 11 January 2021 at 17:49:50 UTC+5:30, Arjun Prabhu wrote:

On Thursday, 3 July 1997 at 12:30:00 UTC+5:30, Anil K. Ruia wrote:

N Arvindkumar (nar...@india.hp.com) wrote:
: Evidence of course there is none,
: but the postman's sister's neighbour's son
: heard that somebody laying bricks
: claimed that TNers were fanatics
: who swore that Kris is #1.
Wah, Wah, that was great :).
Cheers,
Anil

I came across this conversation for the first time today (11th January 2021) and was amazed at the wonderful quality of the discussion which is now almost 24 years old. I am personally a Kapil Dev fan, but I was born in 1984 and started watching cricket in 1996, so i never saw Kapil play live, my admiration for Kapil comes from seeing his old cricket videos on Youtube and reading his autobiogrpahy. It was amazing to read this conversation between people who saw him play live.

Let me give an interesting stat - 6 of the 8 Man of the Match Awards won by Kapil in first test of a series. A mere coincident? Unfortunately, no. From 1980 onwards if one analyses his performance as a bowler, he will find that he averaged around 25 runs per wicket in first tests (32 of them) and over 32 in remaining. That goes to show how tired he became as the series progressed as he was the lone strike bowler for India. Between two test series, there are often rest of 2-3 months which rejuvenated Kapil.
The bottom-line - Kapil Dev was a much superior cricketer than what his numbers shows.
--- SBBSecho 3.06-Win32
* Origin: SportNet Gateway Site (24:150/2)