It was terrible. It left me aghast, it broke my heart, it enraged me. I watched the programme with a couple of friends and their families, and the women wept, along with Kapil. And when Karan Thapar wished Kapil luck, and the credits rolled, I knew that I didn’t give a shit whether this ravaged man was corrupt or not.
I don’t know if Kapil Dev took money and tanked a few games, and I don’t care. Let’s assume the worst case scenario: that he did deliberately underperform in 10 per cent of the matches he played for India. That leaves us with 90 per cent. That is enough to last me a lifetime as an Indian and a cricket lover. He gave me, and millions of other Indians, more, much more than we ever asked for, that we perhaps had the right to ask for. We had no right to demand that he bowl uninterrupted through an entire West Indies innings and take nine wickets, with painkiller injections in his knee. But he did it anyway, because that’s the way he was. What right did we have to expect that a man would come in at 17 for 5 and score 175? He did it, because he never considered an alternative. Twenty-four runs to avoid a follow-on, nine wickets down, four balls left in the over: he solved the problem simply by hitting Eddie Hemmings for four consecutive sixes. No one in the history of cricket, not Victor Trumper, not the Don, not Sir Garfield, would have even thought of doing it this way; they would not have had the guts.
In 1979, Kallicharan’s frustrated Windies team slowed the proceedings down in the Delhi Test enough to leave Kapil four short of his first Test century at the end of the day. He would be nervous, they thought. He would have to figure out the bowling afresh tomorrow, they thought. Kapil took the opportunity to get his mother down from Chandigarh and to the stadium to watch him get his hundred. Surely, that put even more pressure on him? But he hooked the very first ball he faced on the new day, and became the only batsman ever to have got his first international century with a six.
For 15 long years, even after his best days were behind him, whenever Indian wickets tumbled, every Indian told himself: "But Kapil’s still to come. He’ll do something." And the opposition thought so too. However commanding their position in the match, you could see it in their body language, you could sense their apprehension, lip read their silent prayers when this man strode in, swinging his bat, looking up once at the sun. He’ll do something. Most of the time, he didn’t: he got out cheaply, and India hurtled to yet another defeat, but the opposition didn’t gloat when he left, they just quietly thanked their stars that they had been let off lightly. He was the batsman who even the nastiest slip fielders did not abuse and sledge; they were scared he would get angry, and that was real bad news for the bowling team.
Is there any Indian cricketer who has given more to his team? Anyone who has been more competitive, yet as fair? We have laughed for years at his English, but can we think of an Indian cricketer who has been more of a gentleman than Kapil was, on and off the field? As a bowler, he never snarled at batsmen and never appealed frivolously; as a batsman, when the umpire raised his finger, he walked, never remonstrating that the ball had not touched his bat. No cricketer has made me feel prouder to be an Indian or embodies the spirit of this greatest game of all than this rustic Haryanvi with the big buck-toothed grin.
I don’t know whether he took money and threw a few matches, and I don’t give a shit. Call it sub-continental psychology, which makes people ignore corruption as long as the work gets done, call it whatever. I will remain grateful to him for the joy and pride he gave me, and in my mind, he will forever be in that one-foot-off-the-ground Nataraj position, having imperiously pulled a perfectly good ball to the long leg fence. And I suspect there are millions of Indians who feel the same as I do. They don’t give a shit.