The 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev is clear about one thing: India gives far too much attention to a single sport.
“As a nation, we give 99% to cricket,” the 67-year-old former all-rounder said at the Madras Management Association auditorium, where he was attending the launch of Shyam Srinivasan’s book ‘Better Never Stops.’ “It’s unfair. Other sports should also get recognition…only then will the nation grow.”
‘We know only one thing: how to play’
Despite being a cricketing legend himself, Kapil is critical of the country’s singular obsession. His own love for sport, he explained, runs much deeper than just cricket.
“People like us… we know only thing: how to play. If we had it our way, we would be playing some kind of sport from childhood till death,” he said with characteristic honesty. “When we are born, our parents give us a bat and ball to play, but once we turn six or seven, they replace it with a pencil to concentrate on education.”
Kapil, who now plays golf with equal passion, admitted he watches only “5% of the matches today.” But cricket, he acknowledged, is never entirely out of his system.
The Vaibhav Sooryavanshi phenomenon
Like most followers of IPL 2026, Kapil has noticed the teenage sensation who has taken the tournament by storm. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, just 15 years old, has amassed 404 runs in 10 matches at a staggering strike rate of 237.64, including a century and two fifties.
“At the moment, he is a special talent, without doubt,” Kapil said. “But we have to give him time. He is very young and does not know anything other than cricket. Once he gets to know more about life, things might be different.”
Ducking the judgment call
When pressed for a more detailed assessment of Sooryavanshi at an earlier event, however, Kapil refused to play along. The legendary all-rounder chose to duck the bouncer.
“I don’t know because I haven’t seen that. I am like you people. Whatever you put on TV, I see, and I try to make sense out of that. I watch cricket at home on TV, and then giving judgment is not correct,” Kapil told reporters.
Instead, he deferred to those who follow the game more closely. “People who talk and see everybody, they are better. Like Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, or Harsha Bhogle, they can make more sense than I can.”
The 175 connection
The number 175 links Kapil and Sooryavanshi in Indian cricket folklore. Kapil’s unbeaten 175 against Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup saved India from elimination at 17 for 5 and remains the most romanticised knock in the country’s white-ball history.
Forty-three years later, in February 2026, a 14-year-old Sooryavanshi smashed 175 off just 80 balls in the U19 World Cup final against England — 15 sixes, 15 fours, and a metaphor for Indian cricket’s fighting spirit across generations.
“His knock captures the incredulity of talents India own, the days of supremacy that India could wield for generations to come,” noted The Indian Express.
The life lesson from 1983
Kapil was asked what he tells himself when the chips are down — a question that brought him back to that World Cup campaign.
“It’s a story other people will tell better than me,” he said, deflecting with characteristic modesty. “When you are in it, you don’t remember it as vividly as people watching it. It was my day, and I’m happy that I won the tournament for India.”
Pressed for a life lesson, his answer was simple and direct: “Never ever give up. The moment you give up, you are dead.”
A nation’s obsession
For a man who helped spark India’s cricket obsession with that 1983 triumph, Kapil’s call to look beyond the sport carries weight. He remains the boy who loved hitting grounds with bat and ball, but he wishes more Indian children had the chance to discover other passions — without having the pencil replace the bat too soon.
At 67, Kapil Dev continues to speak with the same straightforwardness that defined his captaincy. On Sooryavanshi, on cricket, and on the nation’s skewed priorities — he refuses to sugarcoat.
