But only one man in the entire history of Test cricket has reached the rarified heights of 4000 runs and 400 wickets, the “Quadruple Double”, and sits alone atop the all-rounder’s Mount Olympus. That one man is none other than Kapil Dev Nikhanj.

How valuable was Kapil as an all-rounder to his team? He provided both a high-class batsman and a genuine strike bowler to his team, giving it vital balance. In the entire history of Test cricket only one all-rounder finds a place in both the all-time top 10 wicket takers and top 10 run scorers list for his country. Kapil Dev is both the highest wicket taker and the seventh highest run scorer in Indian Test cricket. His contribution to Indian cricket is so immense that it was but natural that Wisden would pick him as the Indian cricketer of the century. He was indeed India’s one-man army in the truest sense.

But statistics can never do justice to the charisma, the panache, and the sheer brilliance of Kapil Dev. He was not a creature of statistics, though he holds many Indian and World records. What really made Kapil Dev unique was his uncomplicated approach to the game whether batting, bowling, fielding or captaining. The secret was that he blended this approach with immense determination, pride and courage. This combination endeared him to the cricket-mad Indian crowds and made him the first true superstar of Indian cricket.

The seeds of Kapil’s success were planted early. In his autobiography he relates an incident that occurred early in his cricketing life. Fifteen year old Kapil, along with many other young hopefuls, was attending a coaching session for Under-19 cricketers under the auspices of the BCCI in Bombay. After a hard morning’s practice the lunch provided by the Board was two dry chapatis and one large spoonful of vegetables. Kapil who was used to much more wholesome and plentiful food at home confronted Mr. Keki Tarapore of the BCCI. Mr. Keki Taropore didn’t take kindly to this and tried to humiliate the young Kapil. He asked Kapil in front of all the boys, “So, you don’t like the food we give you?” Kapil replied “No Sir, I am a fast bowler and I need more food, and more solid food at that.” Mr. Tarapore broke out into a fit of sarcastic laughter and said, “There are no fast bowlers in India”. The taunting tone nearly brought the young Kapil to tears. He pledged then and there that he would be the best pace bowler India ever produced.

Within a few years of this incident a nineteen year old Kapil Dev made his Test debut at Faisalabad in Pakistan. And having made his debut, he then bestrode the cricket world for the next decade and a half like a colossus, breaking records right and left and fashioning deeds that will remain part of the lore of the game, as long as it is played.

In the span of 25 tests and in exactly 1 year and 108 days from his debut, at the tender age of 21 years and 27 days, Kapil became the youngest player in Test history to complete the all-rounder’s double of 100 wickets and 1000 runs.

He had within a few short years, risen from the ranks to become THE key player in the team, even challenging the primacy of the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, and vying with Sunny for the Captaincy. When Sunny led a team to Pakistan in 1982 and lost 0-3 to Pakistan brilliantly led by Imran Khan, the selectors passed the baton of leadership, perhaps a bit prematurely, to the young Kapil. It was to the credit of both men that despite this abrupt change in leadership, it did not affect their commitment to the team.

The highlight of Kapil’s first stint at Captaincy was undoubtedly the World Cup of 1983. India’s record in the previous two World Cups was frankly pathetic. Their solitary win was in 1975 against lowly East Africa, while they were beaten by Sri Lanka, then not yet a Test nation, in 1979.

Kapil’s “Dev-ils” began well, defeating the defending champions West Indies in their league encounter. This was followed by Kapil’s knock or 175 not out at Tunbridge Wells against a rampant Zimbabwe, who had earlier humiliated Australia and had reduced India to an abject 17 for five. This knock has now passed into cricketing legend, though a BBC television workers strike prevented this innings from being captured for posterity on video. But even the descriptions of that match still raise goose pimples among Indian supporters. Kapil in his characteristic modesty and frankness described his innings like this: “I just said to myself: come on mate, I want to play for 60 overs, not to go for runs. I only got 50 odd in the first 30 overs. I just got a lot of runs in the last 10 overs.” Kapil had reached his hundred in the 49th over (remember those were 60 over games then) but by the end he had 175 not out with six thundering sixes and sixteen cracking fours.

After that Captain’s knock, India never looked back and despite defending a paltry 183 in the final at Lords, they downed the mighty West Indies with runs to spare. Again the turning point in the match belonged to Kapil, this time through his fielding, when he ran nearly 30 yards and held an over-the-shoulder catch to dismiss Viv Richards just as he looked to be getting ready to destroy the Indian bowling.

With India’s World Cup triumph the One-day game truly became the phenomenon it now is in India, nearly overshadowing the more intense, but less glamorous Test matches, as the cricket of choice for most Indians. It is interesting to read according to Ajit Tendulkar, Sachin’s older brother, and biographer, that young Sachin, then about ten, began showing keen interest in cricket, in the wake of India’s World Cup triumph under Kapil Dev. A few short years later, Tendulkar and Kapil would share the same field.

Another great triumph of Kapil’s second stint as Captain was his 2-0 victory in the three Test series in 1986 in England. Ironically at that time, no tickertape parade welcomed Kapil and his team like it did Ajit Wadekar’s team in 1971. It seemed a Test series win abroad didn’t mean a whole lot in the warm afterglow of the 1983 World Cup victory and the 1985 Benson and Hedges mini World Cup triumph. In light of later events, this victory should have been celebrated with much more gusto and remains a high water mark for Indian Test cricket.

Many, many other great feats, too numerous to fully describe, but including a near single handed routing of Australia for 83 at Melbourne with Greg Chappell, Border, Hughes, Walters, Marsh, Wood and Dyson failing to chase a paltry 143, allowing India to square the series 1-1, as well as his battle with Ian Botham in 1982 when three of cricket’s greatest all rounders Kapil, Botham and Imran Khan with their amazing deeds made it indeed the summer of the all-rounder, adorn Kapil Dev’s glittering career.

But what stands out are his incredible fitness, stamina, and determination with little pace support at the other end except for brief partnerships with Karsan Ghavri at the begining, Roger Binny and Chetan Sharma in the middle, and Manoj Prabhakar and Javagal Srinath at the end of his career, to achieve the title of the highest wicket taker in the world. People may question the wisdom of Kapil’s quest, especially after he was since overtaken by several others, but nobody can question his heart and his iron will. From the taunts he faced from a Board Official as a teenager, to the summits he scaled while bowling a large percentage of his overs on some of the most inhospitable and demoralizing terrain for a fast bowler, Kapil displayed his class.

This class is again evident when one realizes that Kapil Dev holds the record for most wickets taken by an Indian in a Test rubber against Pakistan (32 wickets, average 17.68) and West Indies (29 wickets, average 18.51). He achieved such amazing figures while facing batsmen of the caliber of Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, Asif Iqbal, Majid Khan, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd, among others, and did it while at the same time scoring over 500 runs against the likes of Imran Khan, Sarfraz Nawaz, Abdul Qadir, Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, etc.

A defining moment in Kapil’s career occurred versus England during the first Test at Lords in 1990. India were chasing a massive 653 by England and lost its 8th and 9th wicket at 430, precisely 24 runs shy of the follow-on target. Kapil was joined for the last wicket by Narendra Hirwani, whose career aggregate of 54 runs in 17 Tests, is a dozen less than his career tally of 66 wickets. By surving the last ball of Angus Fraser’s 39th over Hirwani presented Kapil with a dilemma: how should he shield the rabbit Hirwani and farm the strike while attempting to get closer to the follow-on target? This was also the discussion among the commentators as Eddie Hemmings came on to bowl his twentieth over. What followed would have made writers of school-boy fiction blush. The first two balls of Hemmings’ over yielded no runs. But the next four balls were slammed for four massive sixes, and precisely 24 runs, thus avoiding the follow on. As if to place an exclamation point on this utterly unique, amazing, bold, and original piece of batting, Fraser trapped Hirwani with the first ball of his 40th over. This incident neatly sums up Kapil Dev, the man and the legend.

The ICC, while announcing Colin Cowdrey as the 19th cricketer to be formally inducted in its elite list of cricket greats, provided the list of persons who have been chosen for the Hall of Fame, but yet to be formally inducted.

The list contains 22 Englishmen, 11 Australians, 13 West Indians, three each from India, Pakistan and two South Africans and a lone New Zealander.

Apparently the list does not contain cricketers who have retired post-1995.

“The Hall of Fame, run in association with the Federation of International Cricketers Associations (FICA), recognises some of the truly great players from crickets long and illustrious history”, ICC said while naming former England captain Cowdrey and its first chairman as its 19th formal inductee.

The world governing council for the game, celebrating its centenary year, also said that further cap presentations will be made during the course of the year and a limited number of inductees, in addition to the 55 already chosen, will be named during 2009.

Strangely, none from Sri Lanka has been found good enough to make the list though the island nation has won the World Cup, ICC’s showpiece event, in 1996.

Even from among Indian cricketers the list does not include C K Nayudu, Lala Amarnath, Vijay Merchant, Vijay Hazare, Vinoo Mankad, Polly Umrigar, Subash Gupte, Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Gundappa Viswanath and Dilip Vengsarkar, to name a few.

Among the Englishmen the name of Dr W G Grace, one of the pioneers of the game, has been included but not Ranjitsinhji, the erstwhile Jamsaheb of Nawanagar, who invented the leg glance, scored close to 1000 runs for England and averaged marginally below 45 in 15 Tests.

More than anything Ranji’s name has been permanently associated with Indian cricket with the national championship being named after him.

Also missing is his nephew Duleepsinhji, who too played for England in pre-independence days and scored close to 1000 runs in only 12 Tests at a high average of 58-plus.

In his memory, the Cricket Board is conducting the inter-zonal championship, once considered as the main selection trials for Tests, since the early 1960s.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) was unsuccessful in its bid to end a dispute between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Indian Cricket League (ICL) after a meeting held in Johannesburg on Monday proved fruitless.

“As a sportsman, I don’t like matters of sport being decided in court, but with the talks failing (again), we may have no choice but to take recourse to law,” Kapil Dev, chairman of the Indian Cricket League (ICL), said.

“I can’t understand who has given the BCCI the right to be the sole authority for promoting cricket in India. The ICL too is doing just that, so why should our boys be punished? That, to me, is not justice.”

The ICL’s application to be recognised as unofficial cricket would now be discussed at the ICC Board meeting in April.

The ICL, bankrolled by one of India’s largest media firms, launched the league following India’s triumph in the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in 2007.

It signed overseas players, particularly from Pakistan, New Zealand and Bangladesh.

However the BCCI, concerned the league would undermine its position, refused to recognise it and persuaded other national boards to ban players who signed up.

“The orientation or familiarisation of Kapil Dev will begin on Friday. The battle efficiency test as it is being called will also include firing practice,” an army official said.

Kapil Dev, who scripted history by leading the Indian team to victory in the 1983 World Cup, was commissioned into the 150 TA (Infantry) battalion of the Punjab Regiment.

The 50-year-old legendary cricketer is now an honorary Lieutenant Colonel. He received his badges of rank from the Indian Army chief on September 24, 2008.

Having inspired thousands of youth in the country to pick up a bat and ball, Kapil Dev now hopes to inspire them to don the Olive Green to protect the nation.

The Territorial Army is a part-time citizen’s force which functions as a “vital adjunct” to the regular army.