Peter Kirsten sheds light on his current relationship with Kapil Dev

It was 9th of December 1992 when one of the most prolific all-rounders in world cricket, a World-Cup winning skipper and the man who was rarely bothered by the evolving shenanigans of modern cricket, showed a sight of him that is until now debated in the roster of world cricket.

Kapil Dev, one of the most iconic all-rounders to have played the sport, mankaded South African batsman, Peter Kirsten on this very day. The incident was just the beginning of one of the most infamous altercations in the history of international cricket.

Peter Kirsten was raring to change ends with the striker as he was surging ahead of the crease on almost every single delivery. Kapil Dev understood the South African’s urgency and issued a word of caution not once but thrice.

When he saw him surging down for the fourth time, that is when the Indian all-rounder dislodged the bails. There was an instant gush of rage from the South African batter and Kapil Dev himself wasn’t particularly happy about the dismissal with him trying to underline that there were three warnings before he committed the act of mankading.

Kirsten was seething after the dismissal and had no intentions of leaving the pitch unless South African captain, Kepler Wessels intervened. Kirsten was still fined 50 percent of his match fee for arguing in the middle of the pitch.

There were whispers of Wessels’ collision with Kapil Dev and somewhere it said that the lunge at Kapil Dev’s shins was intentional even though there wasn’t enough evidence to corroborate the statement.

Wessels later confessed to making contact with Kapil while running but that was unintentional. Match referee Clive Lloyd advocated for peace as he too cited the lack of evidence and consigned the incident to wraps.

Peter Kirsten later opened up about the incident, citing, “In my case with Kapil Dev, he did warn me in the game before, I never thought he would do it but he did.” He continued, “People tend to chat about it at social events. Kapil and I have chatted about it over the years. So it does stick with you and the apologies do come out. But as the years go by, you become friends. Kapil and I have spoken about it. It’s all patched up.”