How the 4 great All-Rounders of the 80's fared against one another

#6 Kapil Dev vs Ian Botham

Bradmanesque Botham, Brilliant Kapil

India's tour to England in 1982 is historic for the fact that in no other series in cricket history have two of the world's best all-rounders competed for one-upmanship on a pound-for-pound basis.

By 1982 Botham was at his absolute peak, whereas Dev's batting form had withered away after a promising start and people had started to have serious doubts about his batting ability.

Botham also produced a once in a lifetime performance vs India in the Jubilee test at Kolkata in 1980 (13 wickets and 114 runs). Dev, it seems, was under pressure to make it count with both bat and ball.

But Dev answered his critics in the most emphatic manner possible as he toyed with the England bowling with a Viv Richards like brilliance.

This was exhibited best in the first test at Lord's where following on in the third innings, Kapil was en route to scoring the fastest test century of all time when he was dismissed for a 55 ball 89 (including a casual hoick for six over square leg off Ian Botham), and by the way, this was following a five-wicket haul in the first innings.

Ian Botham responded promptly with a belligerent 208 in the 3rd test at the Oval, taking a heavy toll of Dev in the process. At the time, it was the fastest double century in tests. Not to be out-done, Dev responded with a brilliant 97 off 93 balls.

Botham and Dev ended the series as the top two run scorers (403 and 292 respectively) whereas Kapil took 10 wickets to Botham's nine. Dev was awarded the man of the series on the ground that he faced a tougher opposition.

Fortunately, there are videos of these virtuoso performances available on YouTube which I would urge the reader to watch to see the two brilliant all-rounders going at it.

Kapil Dev vs Ian Botham

Although Dev has a fantastic batting average of 41.2 while playing against Botham, he is still eclipsed by Botham's Bradman-like average of 70.6, helped mainly by the 448 runs he accumulated during England's 1981 tour of India.

It should be remembered however that at this point, Botham was the best bowler and the best batsman in the England team with more wickets and runs than both Willis and Gower.

Dev meanwhile had Gavaskar, Vengsakar and Viswanath preceding him in the batting line up. Although he was back to his brilliant best on the 1990 tour to England, Botham didn't play in that series else Kapil's record would have been better

There is little to separate in terms of bowling as Dev took 51 wickets to Botham's 59. Kapil, although conceded 10 more runs than Botham's 26.4.

Botham, it emerges, had better numbers in both departments but Kapil's flashes of brilliance do not seem to relegate him so far behind.