Generation Next – indeed the whole country and the cricketing world – is still reeling under the incredible high experienced after India’s win at the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa. But the euphoria over the victory and the idolisation of M S Dhoni and his dare-to-win boys in blue brings to mind another historic win, almost 25 years ago and the men who made the impossible possible – Kapil and his ‘Devils’! Interestingly, in the past couple of months, the captain who had made that dream real has caused a buzz of his own with the launch of the ICL (Indian Cricket League) and his exit as NCA (National Cricket Academy) chairman.

Forty eight-year-old Dev who has plunged into his newly minted role as chief executive, ICL, is a man on the move…and not just metaphorically. No wonder then that he agrees to meet at the Mumbai airport early one Monday morning, promising to talk on the way to the office in the city…. The flight is delayed and a few minutes after it lands, he emerges in front of the waiting crowd of people.

The car moves in and out of the growing early morning traffic and I watch him as he leans back in its cool confines. His hair is now flecked with grey, his frame a little more fleshed out than it was in his playing years…he carries a briefcase and a cell in his hands instead of the small red globe and broad bat that he worked with so effortlessly…and yet, in his speech and actions you can sense the undying fire and passion for the sport. It is a reminder of the raw determination, unrestrained power that impelled his moves on the field. And if ever there was a pioneer in the world of sports who has proved time and again that winners don’t do different things, rather they do things differently, it was Dev. His bazooka batsmanship had created its own grammar, his English often had gone the same way. The heartland loved him. He was India’s first cricketing superhero of the masses.

His life story is the stuff of best-sellers. Dev is the original small-town player who made one feel that hard work and passion can propel anyone from the annals of anonymity to the pages of history books. “Any young kid dreams of being a cricketer. I never imagined that I would ever play for my country…. When I did, I gave the boys the confidence that we can achieve it. We were the first players to come out of small towns, play for the country and win…. So, boys began to think that if a Kapil Dev could play, then everyone could!” he states.

His tryst with the game ultimately led to ‘the most beautiful period of my life’. The boy who was one of the youngest in the family grew up to lead the country in his yeoman days. When I ask him if the baby became an effective leader, he replies, “True, I was the most babied person in my family. We had a lot of respect for each other…helped each other. My game got the extra edge due to the fact that I grew up in Chandigarh, a very sporty city,” he remembers.

Qualities of discipline were instilled early on in the boy who idolised players like G R Vishwanath, Bishen Singh Bedi, Prasanna and Sunil Gavaskar. The lad, who was turned away from practice once by his coach because he had reported late, admits that at that time sports was never considered a serious option for a career. “We had a family business and there was an emphasis on studying enough to manage it. Law, engineering, medicine were prime career opportunities. I was very poor in studies,” Dev admits. “When talks for my marriage began, my father was asked what I did. He said, ‘Woh cricket khelta hai….’ My in-laws questioned, ‘But what work does he do?’ Today, it is different though. Parents come up to me and ask me to make their son a Rahul Dravid, a Sachin Tendulkar, an M S Dhoni....”

His parents realised that the young boy was serious about his play only when his photos began appearing in papers. “By then half the battle was won,” he laughs. “I remember my coach went to my father and told him that I needed a more substantial diet. My mother is a firm believer of simple food and my father immediately went out and bought two buffaloes so that I could have more milk and butter.”

What did the debutant feel, joining a group of seniors, all of whom he had watched from afar? Flashbacking to that nascent stage in his career, he talks about ties in the dressing room: “Be honest. The people you play with are all colleagues, not really friends. You get close to someone you have stayed with often. It took time to break the ice. Initially, I would not speak much. I was very quiet in the first two years. I gave my opinion only when I was asked to.”

Difficult to believe, for the Kapil Dev we know and have read about has always spoken up for what he has believed in, be it the placing of logos on uniforms or clamouring for better food at a junior training camp…or more recently, fighting for the rights of erstwhile and present cricketers. “I respect the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) but have fought and argued with its officials and policies on many an occasion,” says the outspoken Dev. “As I started growing in my game, I became more vocal. I used to say that this is the way things should be. When I began playing in my teens, I did not know where I was heading…what direction my life would take. Later on, I was in the thick of things. When I finally gave up playing cricket, I realised who I was, what I believed in. I started thinking and giving my opinions. A man without opinions is nothing. I give my views on what I know best, cricket.”

His strong, sometimes unsought for comments, may have alienated his former friends. “Compared to other nations, we are a bunch of hypocrites. I am not worried about what people think. When I speak freely, they hate me for a moment. But they realise where I am coming from; they know me and are aware that I am not lying. I do not want people to love me or hate me. I am what I am. This is me.” That is perhaps, the essence of Kapil Dev – the cricketer, the man. Fearless, frank and fortright. “I have never been afraid of anything, not even when I was playing,” he says. “When you are fearless, you can be true to yourself.”

A formula that worked when he went on to become captain and held sway over former captains and senior players. For no one can forget that it was under his leadership that India brought home its first World Cup in cricket in 1983. “Initially, doing my job was very tough. I come from a very different background. I may not have that much finesse,” he states. “I had former captains playing under me. I realised that off the field they are still my captains. On the field I am the captain. So, I was not shy to say what I wanted. And I had no ego problems with anyone. My ego surfaced on the field. I was out there to defeat my opponents.”
As we alight at the office of ICL in Central Mumbai, thoughts go back to the big win his boys had engineered in 1983. “In a way, you can say it was an accident. It was god’s gift to me....”

Being on the precincts of the making-a-buzz venture is enough to veer the conversation to the latest developments. A few years ago, he had been reported as saying: ‘If someone says Kapil Dev is making money, I say, ‘Yes I am’. I don’t do charity; I have to run my home. I am not embarrassed to say so, nor scared. Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan also earn money and if they get Rs 2 crore more, they will take that. Why be embarrassed about that?”

As Dev waves me to a seat in a vacant cabin, he gets on to his favourite hobby horse and words flow easily and smoothly. “People who made the game so big, so powerful, are today struggling to live. They do not have decent houses. Cricketers play till they are about 35… after that we have to learn to work, in the normal sense of the term. If a cricketer is making money in a honest fashion, is that a crime? We charge money to make our life comfortable. I am working 200 + days in a 365-day year. Would you call that part-time? The rajas, maharajas, Ambanis, Tatas, Birlas… have all made money from their hard work. They are all superheroes. So, why do people put a stigma on what we do? We are not taking money from the poor on the streets.”

I wonder whether his new role will not change his focus and dream of continuously nurturing the game to greater heights. With money coming to the forefront in an even bigger way, the ball is on a different pitch altogether. Striding out of the room to a bright spot, Dev talks as he walks: “The day I feel that I am not trying to promote cricket, I will leave it and walk out. The ICL has hired me to do a job. Tomorrow if the national players come and ask me to play with them and the ICL stops me, I will throw it up. My bigger objective is to teach cricket to my people.”

The man who was named Wisden’s Cricketer of the Century in 2002 has survived the brickbats and controversies that have dogged his footsteps, the biggest one being the match-fixing one. Viewers can still remember the stalwart breaking down on a television talk show. “I will commit suicide rather than take a bribe,” he had said publicly. The scandal – he was later exonerated – had affected not just his credibility but the lives of wife, Romi and his young daughter, Amiya.

The world of business is not new to the man who owned a hotel (Kaptain’s Retreat) and has for a long time been involved with his wife’s business. As he turns away to enter the room for his 10 o’ clock meeting, he says, “Cricket has given me everything, it has given me my life… I cannot even think that if not a cricketer, what I would have been. And, if I am really honest, I would say that I could have given the game much, much more.”