Stats : All Rounders

[Lurker]

Thanks again. was quite revealing. shows that kapil lost the sting in his bowling after the knee operation. he was 3 rd fastest to 200 & 2000 but the slowest to 350 & 3500 club.his famous jump was affected and later even the God's gift-out swinger deserted him for some years. he regained the swing but the pace just went down blunting his effectiveness. nevertheless he was good enough to play as a batsman when he retired.

Thats where statistics can be deceiving. Although it shows Kapil reaching 200th wicket in 50 test while Imran did so in 45th (and hence faster to 200-2000 double), the truth is if you checked out the number of innings you would be surprised to see that both Kapil and Imran actually took close to the same number of innings to reach 200 wickets(Kapil's 82 as against Imran's 81), and Kapil took less to reach 2000 runs(71 innings as against 75 by Imran). So if you play by the actual innings the two bowled/batted in, Kapil would actually come ahead. This also shows the advantage of having a good bowling support. Kapil needed 50 tests to bowl in 82, Imran needed 45. As the saying goes the Devil lies in the detail. The two reached the double around the summer of 1983, by which time Kapil was the also the World Champion skipper. And if ever there was an award for the best natural fielder Kapil would beat every other all-rounder out there. xxx

[Lurker]

Barring 4-5 series' date= Kapil's bowling was pretty average '86 onwards. Ideally, he should have transformed himself into more of a batsman who would be a support bowler. But, the lack of pace bowling options, or rather all bowling options, prevented the transformation. Whatever the reasons might be, but he had a strike rate close to 80 and wickets/match of 2.5 for the last 50+ tests of his career which is pretty ordinary stuff for an opening bowler. Yeah, decent figures for a support bowler but nothing more.

Thats harsh. Towards the *** end he had a great series Down under, 25 wickets in 5 tests, including a spell that Ian Chapell picked as the best spell he had ever seen(he wrote that little bit in the ESPN 25 list). Kapil dismissed David Boon and Dean Jones inside the 3 delivery and if I remember clean bowled Jones with an outswinger after setting him up with an inswinger. I dont disagree with your notion that Kapil's bowling did get affected towards the end of his career. I personally think it was due to the simple fact that Kapil played lot more, almost 1.5 times, more cricket than any of his peers - Imran, Hadlee, Botham - in almost three quarters of the time! I mean Imran needed 21 years to play out 80 Tests, Kapil did 131 in 14! And most of them on dead Indian tracks(which back then never ever supported pacers). xxx

[Lurker]

When he got to the crease it used to cause such a adrenaline rush just exactly what happens now when Sehwag gets going. Truly a great great player one of a kind. :hatsoff:

Actually I would put Kapil much ahead of Sehwag in terms of sheer adrenalin rush. For the simple reason that the way Kapil batted was absolutely unheard of back then. The commentators of the time would struggle to compare him with anyone, and most of them would eventually settle on the entertainers of yesteryears Gilbert Jessop or Learie Constantine. It was not too hard to see why. Even when compared against the "hard hitters" like Botham, Imran, Greenidge etc etc Kapil would have a clear advantage of about 20 runs in terms of strike rate. In a way it also went against him. People who saw him bat would rate him easily as the best bat, or at most 2nd best bat (after Botham) amongst all-rounders. However those who were not lucky enough would fall on the stats and well Kapil never really played for it. xxx

[The Outsider]

Thats harsh. Towards the *** end he had a great series Down under, 25 wickets in 5 tests, including a spell that Ian Chapell picked as the best spell he had ever seen(he wrote that little bit in the ESPN 25 list). Kapil dismissed David Boon and Dean Jones inside the 3 delivery and if I remember clean bowled Jones with an outswinger after setting him up with an inswinger. I dont disagree with your notion that Kapil's bowling did get affected towards the end of his career. I personally think it was due to the simple fact that Kapil played lot more, almost 1.5 times, more cricket than any of his peers - Imran, Hadlee, Botham - in almost three quarters of the time! I mean Imran needed 21 years to play out 80 Tests, Kapil did 131 in 14! And most of them on dead Indian tracks(which back then never ever supported pacers). xxx

Not really harsh. I said he had only 4-5 series after '86 in which he was really effective and can't remember anything more than the Australia series you mentioned, and the '89 tours of WI and Pakistan where he posed a consistent threat as a bowler. I am also a big Kapil fan, but it was a reality that in the last 6-7 years of his career he was no longer a strike bowler. He would have been a good support bowler, but it's another thing that we did not have a strike bowler he could support.

[Rajan]

Thats harsh. Towards the *** end he had a great series Down under, 25 wickets in 5 tests, including a spell that Ian Chapell picked as the best spell he had ever seen(he wrote that little bit in the ESPN 25 list). Kapil dismissed David Boon and Dean Jones inside the 3 delivery and if I remember clean bowled Jones with an outswinger after setting him up with an inswinger. I dont disagree with your notion that Kapil's bowling did get affected towards the end of his career. I personally think it was due to the simple fact that Kapil played lot more, almost 1.5 times, more cricket than any of his peers - Imran, Hadlee, Botham - in almost three quarters of the time! I mean Imran needed 21 years to play out 80 Tests, Kapil did 131 in 14! And most of them on dead Indian tracks(which back then never ever supported pacers). xxx

i was listening to Radio Australia commentary and watched the highlights that night, 1992 i think.next day, R.Mohan, The Hindu cricket correspondent ranked those 3 balls as the best sequence of 3 balls he had ever watched in test cricket.one correction-Kapil picked up Allan Border off the first of those 3 balls. Border nodded his head to kapil in admiration after getting out, i still remember that.Kapil sorted out Deano in the next 2 balls! I had mentioned earlier some where that until the knee surgery, that is 1984, Kapil was a superb new ball bowler. in fact when Gooch and Boycott put up a 100 partnership in chennai test in 1980's, some statistician pointed out that it was one of the very few times an opening partnershiip put up 100+ after kapil made his debut.

[Lurker]

i was listening to Radio Australia commentary and watched the highlights that night' date=' 1992 i think.next day, R.Mohan, The Hindu cricket correspondent ranked those 3 balls as the best sequence of 3 balls he had ever watched in test cricket.[b']one correction-Kapil picked up Allan Border off the first of those 3 balls. Border nodded his head to kapil in admiration after getting out, i still remember that.Kapil sorted out Deano in the next 2 balls!

I am sure you are correct about this. When I was writing the post I was confused whether it was Boon or Border. The reason I got confused was after Kapil set Deano with the first swinging delivery, Jones was shocked to see that kind of swing, wondered if there was anything in the track and he looked up at the runner who basically shrugged his shoulders and mumbled "Bugger if I know". Kapil of course took out Jones with the next one. I was wondering who the runner was. Just in case you were interested Ian Chappell also picked the 3 as the best sequence of 3 deliveries. His second pick was spell by Andy Roberts.

I had mentioned earlier some where that until the knee surgery, that is 1984, Kapil was a superb new ball bowler. in fact when Gooch and Boycott put up a 100 partnership in chennai test in 1985, some statistician pointed out that it was one of the very few times an opening partnershiip put up 100+ after kapil made his debut.

True. Kapil and (Karsan) Ghavri opened the bowling together for about 27 tests and never did the opposition score a century partnership against them! Taking nothing away from Karsan I would think Kapil was the main reason for this as by this time he had about 108 wickets@26 while Ghavri had 75@36. Still it was probably the best new ball partnetship for Kapil. xx