Greater Noida: Brand Kapil Dev was a thing much before brand was anything in Indian sports. His was a truly organic, everlasting phenomenon. Today, it is being put to use in perhaps just the way it was always meant to be — playing it forward.As president of the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), a role he has slipped into like the proverbial glove, the former India Test captain and 1983 World Cup winner is helping add huge value to Indian golf.On Wednesday, shadows lengthening at the Jaypee Greens Golf & Spa Resort course, Kapil sat on the clubhouse green, gazing benignly at the last of the groups putting home in a tournament named after him. Excerpts…How do you feel as an Indian sportsman to have a tournament named after you?They’ve done it without my knowing it. They contacted my office and it was decided. It should be a President Cup, not Kapil Dev Invitational. I am just a worker.Would it be right to say then, this is your third coming? First as a cricketer, then as a coach of the Indian team, now this…No, no. You can’t say coach. If I give you a job for 10 days, you can’t become a coach. I was not working even six months (as coach). I wouldn’t consider that a coaching assignment.How would you describe this role of yours?I feel very happy. If we can do something for golf. I love to do work for cricket but if they don’t invite me, I have to do something. So I feel very happy to do it for golf.Had you played golf when you were an active cricketer, would it have benefitted you…?Had I played golf then, it would have helped with concentration. One bad shot can get you out in cricket too, but here your target is small.A lot of active cricketers are serious golfers today…Just go and enjoy yourself. Cricketers should understand they are playing for pleasure and making the game more popular. If they want to be a professional then they have to have a different frame of mind.Define ‘different frame of mind’…You need eight to 10 hours (daily) workload. Golf is very, very tough.That brings us to this much-used point of workload management and injuries in cricket today. As somebody who’s never been injured playing cricket, why do you feel it’s so common today?I don’t think I can judge. Only those who are playing can.What does Hardik Pandya, for example, need to do to be available more often?Play more cricket.Do you think he’s not doing that?I don’t know. You play more, your body gets tuned to that. But if you play less and suddenly you play more, chances of injury increase. If your muscles are fine, your injuries are less.There’s a spread of cricket injuries over the last four-five years. Is there too much of the game happening?Sandeep Patil put it very nicely. ‘In our time we used to play Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy, club cricket, other cricket too.’ In 365 days, if you can play 250 days, you’re in the game.Do you watch more golf or cricket today?I don’t watch cricket. Yes, if I see the highlights or something special happens, you definitely go and see and enjoy that.What do you think has changed in cricket?A little bit of equipment. The bats have changed. These young boys are very confident, much better. They get a lot more opportunities. In our time, if you’re out of the team, you have to play Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy. The opportunities these cricketers have is a lot.The board has given them more opportunities to come back and perform, like Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar). He’s come back after four years because he played in the IPL, performed and bounced back. But here, more credit to Bhuvi than anybody else. Because in a cricketing sense, they really write you off very fast. But he kept on working with the opportunities that he got.In golf, more sponsorships are coming in but we haven’t had an international win in a long time…If you don’t give the golfers infrastructure, how will they improve? All top golfers, they still can’t walk in to play in any golf course. Give them a better place to practise and play. Then it’s a different thing altogether.Today, if you tell a top golfer to go play, they have to pay wherever they have to play, even at this course. As administrators, we feel very sorry for this limitation. The top 40 or 50 pros in this country should be able to walk in to play at any of the golf courses.Which cricketers do you love watching right now?Any young cricketer who we can feel has a future for the next 10 years, 15 years. Those type of cricketers. We have seen Rohit, Virat. We already saw Sachin. And they made us so proud. (But) you’re always looking for the next hero. You always ask, ‘Who is the next hero?’As a cricketer I like to see which is that young boy who has got that chance, who can replace Virat Kohli. And play for 15 years. That’s what my mind looks for.What about Vaibhav Sooryavanshi…?It’s too early. Does he have the ability? Yes. But there have been so many in cricket who came with so much ability, then faded out.Look at Vinod Kambli. What will we say about that? Vaibhav is 16 years old. Give him another three years, then we will talk. When his lifestyle changes, his thinking too will change. Then we’ll come to know how he will look after the next two years. That is more important than looking at his performance.For someone with a classical bowling action like yours, how do you look at someone unorthodox like Bumrah, who’s still the mainstay of the Indian team?He’s fabulous. Hats off to him. With that action, he’s proved people like us wrong. We never thought he could survive with that action and bowl so well and become world leading bowler. Tremendous.You spoke of Kambli. What more help does he need?Everybody can help him, only if he helps himself. I don’t believe in giving him money. I would rather pay his hospital expenses or rehab expenses. Why has he reached this situation? Kambli has himself to blame.Imran Khan is a good friend of yours. Are you planning to send a fresh letter for his release?As cricketers, we’ve done it twice already. That’s their government, their policy. I’d like to see that they should look after him properly, on a humanitarian basis. He was a great cricketer… five, six years senior to me. We grew up watching him play. I admire him.
