'I played cricket & live life on front-foot'

Kapil Dev: I think somewhere in 1975-76, the first time I went to the Under-22 camp and I was barely 17 and I had senior guys with me in that camp. Hemu Adhikari, who is a former cricketer, started telling the senior players that ‘look at how he takes a catch and look at his run-up.’

When you play, you don’t know if have the talent but other people can assess. They suddenly started saying that this guy has the talent and I went back and started saying to myself that – these are the top cricketers that we have and out of them some of them are going to play for the country, maybe even I can play. That was the only change that I required and when I went back there was a day-night difference in my approach.

Nobody asked me to get up and play. The motivation came from within.

Anuradha SenGupta: I was reading your book – Straight from the heart – and there you have mentioned that you cut out everything that was not helping you, weather it was friends or habits. You started eliminating things that didn’t contribute to help you achieve your goals. How difficult was it to do what you did

Kapil Dev: It was not that difficult. When things start rolling and you are performing and doing well, nothing is difficult. It is only difficult when things are not going for you. You are performing, you are taking wickets, you are scoring runs and happiness makes you work more.

Two things can come out of it. Either you become complacent and arrogant and start believing that you know everything. Or you start working because you want to be the best in the world.

Sunil Gavaskar was the pioneer in giving us that realisation that we can be the best in the world.

Anuradha SenGupta: There is the story of your father getting two buffaloes and you had to drink a lot of milk.

Kapil Dev: It just happened that my coach and my brother met and they decided that I need proper food. I don’t know how that went to my father but suddenly there were two buffaloes. I was born in Chandigarh and we have a timber business. So we have a big timber place behind the timber market and there they kept the buffaloes.

My mother was petrified and she said: ‘How are we going to handle 15-20 liters of milk as day?’ My mom then used to make buttermilk and butter. I had never eaten that white butter. My mom used to put that butter straight in my mouth and it was tasteless. But it was good for me. So I started enjoying myself.

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