SK Flashback: India's courageous captains of cricket

Sunny and the Haryana Hurricane

The statistics for Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, who captained India through most of the 1980s (until 1987 to be precise) are less than impressive. A large number of drawn matches and not many wins (just 4 for Kapil Dev and 9 for Sunil Gavaskar). Let not the numbers fool us, however.

With not a single strike bowler in the side, except for Kapil Dev, winning Test matches abroad was an arduous task in the period when Sunny and Kapil were captain. It was a time when Clive Lloyd's West Indies were at their peak with a devastating pace bowling attack and an equally dangerous batting line-up.

So, the near-impossible task both captains faced was attempting to inspire their team to handle the pace quartet of Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, and Micheal Holding (nicknamed Whispering Death) who was also a part of 1976 side. As if that wasn't enough, the batting was equally menacing. When Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Vivian Richards, and Clive Lloyd came in to bat, Kapil Dev had to shoulder, almost single-handedly the task of bowling the opposition out both as captain and under Gavaskar.

When India toured Pakistan in 1982-83, Imran Khan too was in the form of his life. Imran's pace and reverse swing ended the career of the Gundappa Vishwanath and wrecked the Indian batting, even with some great talent like Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohinder Amarnath, and Sandeep Patil in the ranks. In the batting department for Pakistan, Zaheer Abbas and Javed Miandad were totally untroubled by the Indian bowling and what's more, seemed to relish the Indian attack.

Team India then was neither adept at handling genuine pace nor in producing bowlers of any great pace at the time. Imagine a General marching his troops to battle the enemy who have all the ammunition needed in their arsenal when he himself hardly has any. Leading teams as underdogs to take on the best requires courage and character.

Both Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar helped India garner great respect in cricketing circles. It was a time when Australia and England were considered the "elite" of the game with the Asian teams having negligible influence. Kapil Dev captained India to victory in the 1983 World Cup and Sunil Gavaskar in the 1985 World Championship of Cricket, thus forcing the cricketing world to look at India with renewed respect.