ICC should keep all traditions of cricket alive – Kapil Dev

Kapil Dev wearing Galle Marvels colours at the R. Premadasa Cricket Stadium 

• Says only way to build a team is if system is good enough

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

One of India’s greatest cricketers and World Cup winning captain of 1983 Kapil Dev said that the International Cricket Council (ICC) should keep all the traditions of cricket alive.

“As long as the spectator comes, that is the best thing. If nobody comes to see T20s, the game will be a flop. I have a request for the ICC – to keep all the traditions of cricket alive. It is important to keep Test cricket, One-Day cricket and T20 cricket alive. T20 is the need of the hour because people do not have so much time today. They only want to see T20 bang, bang, bang, but I think there is still a scope to keep playing Test matches and One-day cricket,” said the former Indian superstar who was on a brief visit to Sri Lanka on the invitation of Galle Marvels owner Prem Thakur.

Galle Marvels are in the final of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) and will play the winner of the Kandy Falcons v Jaffna Kings match on Sunday.

“Today’s youngsters are very good, they have a lot more confidence. They are much fitter than what we were in our time – the only thing is they should not try to ignore playing big cricket,” said Dev, who led India to their first World Cup win in 1983.

“That was a beautiful group of boys. We enjoyed ourselves and we played. Nobody was expecting us to win. We ourselves were not expecting it, but halfway through we started to believe that we can achieve this. Once you start believing in the human mind then everything is possible, and that is what happened to the team. The team started believing and after that, the result was in front of the world.”

Diverting his attention to Sri Lanka cricket, Dev said: “When you have great players who have stopped playing it is very difficult to build a team. The only way you can build a team is if your system is good enough. There is no shortage of talent in Sri Lanka, not now, but in our time. The only thing I can say to all the youngsters is don’t only look to playing T20 – there is a lot of cricket. Learn the game, and then you can join and play with the big guns. But young boys must play local cricket, not only T20, but all kinds of cricket.”

“Generation after generation you have to produce a superstar to bring back the young crowd and India has done fairly well in that. If you have a star who can move the new generation, that is what I look for. I always look for who will be the next performer.”

“Since the great players stopped playing cricket eight years ago, Sri Lanka cricket has been on the decline and struggling to find proper replacements which has led to their topsy-turvy performances, and their domestic structure is not the best going around. In the national team today, Sri Lanka has no superstars for youngsters to look up to and emulate. The paucity of a superstar is because the system is not strong.”

Dev, who witnessed the LPL match between the Galle Marvels and Dambulla Sixers which ended in a tie with Galle going onto win in the Super Over, said: “I am enjoying every minute because when you travel as a young kid and when you come back after 20-30 years, the memories come back. After so long, I never felt that I have ever played this game. Why T20 is popular is, within a short period of time, you can see so many ups and downs, where Galle won a match which they were going to lose.”

In passing, Dev said: “Players should be passionate about life – not only cricket – but whatever they are doing, and express their talent.”