New Delhi. World champion captain of Indian cricket team Kapil Dev is going to start a new innings. This legend, who captained India’s 1983 World Cup winning team, has taken over as the new President of the Indian Professional Golf Tour (PGTI). This post is a new beginning for this eminent former cricketer, who has also performed brilliantly as an amateur golfer.
Sixty-five-year-old Kapil was already a member of the PGTI board as vice-president. He was elected unanimously. He will replace HR Srinivasan whose term has ended. Kapil is known as a good golfer. Talking about his new position, Kapil said, “It is an honour for me to become the president of PGTI. I have been associated with this organisation for the last few years. It is a players’ organisation and I am a very good friend of all of them and I often play with them.”
Kapil said golf has been his passion for more than three decades. The former cricketer said he dreamt of representing India at the Asian Games when only amateurs were allowed to participate. “And now it is the sport I spend most of my time in. I have been the vice-president and I am on the board, so I am very proud to be elected president by the players. I promise to do my best as always,” he said.
Kapil has been at the forefront of trying to bring in new sponsors for the PGTI. He has managed to organise one of the most lucrative tournaments on the tour, the Kapil Dev Grant Thornton Invitational at the DLF Golf and Country Club with a prize money of Rs 2 crore. India’s top star players like Jeev Milkha Singh, Arjun Atwal, Jyoti Randhawa, Shiv Kapur are his close golf friends.
Kapil Dev’s brilliant cricket career
Kapil played cricket for India from 1978 to 1994. One of the greatest all-rounders of all time, Kapil played 131 Tests and 225 ODIs. Under his leadership, India won the 1983 World Cup. His unbeaten innings of 175 runs in the 1983 World Cup is considered one of the best innings in the history of the game. In Test cricket, he scored 5248 runs with the help of eight centuries and took 434 wickets, which was a world record at that time. He also scored 3783 runs in ODIs and took 253 wickets in this format.
Tags: Kapil Dev
FIRST PUBLISHED : June 26, 2024, 11:50 IST