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Rotary Club honours Kapil Dev

Special Correspondent

International referee Achanta gets Vocational Excellence award

— Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

HONOURING A LEGEND:Kapil Dev at the Lifetime Achievement award function organised by the Rotary Club with (from left) Mohan Rajan, past president, Rotary Club of Madras T. Nagar, S. Varadarajan, Secretary, Vijay Amritraj, K. Srikkanth and present president K. Ramanujam.

Chennai: Legendary all-rounder Kapil Dev was conferred with the Lifetime Achievement award by the Rotary Club of Madras, T. Nagar, at a pleasant function here on Tuesday night.

Accepting the award amidst thunderous applause, Kapil said he was delighted to be honoured in a city he loved the most. “I like everything about Chennai,” he said with a smile.

The former India captain, who led the country to its only ODI World Cup triumph in 1983, said he simply enjoyed his cricket. “If others liked my game, I am so happy,” he said.

Pointing towards his friend and former team-mate K. Srikkanth, Kapil said, “People talk about the shot over point or covers these days. But I can tell you that Srikkanth was the pioneer.”

Kapil added, “Between 1980 and '90, we had fast bowlers who not only liked to pick wickets but also loved to see blood on the turf. Srikkanth was fearless against those quicks.”

Complete natural

Srikkanth said: “Kapil was the person who taught me self-belief. You get only one cricketer like Kapil in a life-time. He was a complete natural and an astonishing match-winner with the bat and the ball.”

Dwelling on India's World Cup triumph in England in the summer of '83, Srikkanth said, “Kapil's pep talk to us before our first match of the competition, against the West Indies at the Old Trafford, lifted the team.

“We had defeated the West Indies in an ODI at Berbice during the tour of the Caribbean that preceded the World Cup but had a terrible run-up to the competition, even losing to minor counties. Kapil then said at the meeting, ‘if we can beat the West Indies once, we can do it again.'

“His words inspired the team. We defeated the West Indies and that really was the beginning of our extraordinary journey in the tournament. That match at Old Trafford was the turning point.”

Former tennis ace Vijay Amritraj, who spoke on the occasion, said: “Kapil, the Haryana Hurricane, gave the people of India hope. He also enabled them to dream. Kapil was such an exciting cricketer to watch because you would never know what he would come up with the next moment.”

International referee Ishwar Achanta was presented with the Vocational Excellence award for promoting golf.

“Golf is not just a vocation. It is a way of life,” he said.

All the speakers had words of praise for the Rotary Club's charity work.

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