If cricket gave Kapil Dev his identity, one that places him among the game’s greatest, golf became one of his closest companions after his retirement in 1994. Not only has he excelled as an amateur golfer, but since 2024, he has also served as the President of the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI). Yet, one regret lingers: why he never picked up the sport during his playing days.
In his column for The Indian Express, Kapil recalled how some of the greatest in cricket, including Gary Sobers and Don Bradman, played golf while still active. But that culture never existed in India.
“I played golf after I stopped playing cricket. But even cricketers in the past would play golf. Gary Sobers used to play all the time. Don Bradman used to play golf. There is a photograph of Bradman playing golf. Indians never used to play, I don’t know why. They liked to sit in the room,” he wrote.
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The 1983 World Cup-winning captain went a step further, claiming that golf could have significantly enhanced his cricketing output.
“Golf can 100 percent help a cricketer. Had I played golf when playing cricket, I would have scored another 2,000 runs minimum. Because it improves focus, coordination and timing. I don’t have words to express the amount of pleasure golf has given me.”
Kapil finished his international career with 9,031 runs across 131 Tests and 225 ODIs between 1978 and 1994. He also picked up 687 wickets, cementing his legacy as one of the greatest pace-bowling all-rounders in cricket history.
Had he, by his own admission, added another 2,000 runs, his tally would have risen to 11,031, taking him from 16th to 12th on the all-time international run-scorers list. That would have seen him surpass players like KL Rahul (9,678), Gautam Gambhir (10,324), Dilip Vengsarkar (10,376) and Shikhar Dhawan (10,867), while coming close to former Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi’s tally of 11,196.
More significantly, those additional runs would have made Kapil the first cricketer to achieve the rare double of 11,000-plus runs and 600-plus wickets in international cricket, a milestone currently held only by Shakib Al Hasan (14,730 runs and 712 wickets).
Kapil played his final international match in Faridabad against the West Indies in October 1994. He later returned as India’s head coach in 1999, but his tenure lasted just 10 months amid the turbulence of match-fixing allegations. In the years that followed, he served as a bowling consultant and chaired the National Cricket Academy for two years before being removed after joining the Indian Cricket League in 2007.