Dear Kapil Dev: Yesterday in Sri Lanka Kapil broke the record for the number of wickets taken in a Test career. D R Pringle's was at least one of them

So you've done it at long last. You've overtaken Sir Richard Hadlee as the greatest wicket-taker in the history of Test cricket. Well done. You must be the toast of India. Even popular in nihilistic Calcutta, something Sunil Gavaskar was never able to manage. God status must now be assured. I expect you to be fitted in the pantheon somewhere between Kali, who is all arms and legs (a bit like your bowling action), and Shiva, the destroyer - which you could be, especially when the ball was swinging.

Curiously though, you were only ever mentioned in dispatches when pundits talked about the likes of Ian Botham, Imran Khan and Sir Richard. Well, you've had the last laugh now, proving that litheness and longevity are more than the equal of pace and power.

Ignore those knockers who will say that you bowled many more overs than Hadlee to get the record. They are just ignoramuses who couldn't tell the difference between a samosa and a bhaji. We bowlers all know how flat and slow Indian pitches are, and that you often slaved away for 60 overs or more, every home Test, for scant reward. Yours is a triumph of craftiness and skill. Not for nothing are you known as Kapil Devious.

I well remember you dismissing me at Lord's in 1986. You were bowling from the pavilion end and you got the ball to bounce and run up the slope, taking the edge of the bat as it went. To this day I can't see how I could have avoided dismissal. That was the other secret of your success: you bowled a full length. In the context of modern Test cricket, this was a rare thing, and batsmen's eyes lit up at the prospect of playing something off the front foot for a change. Silly them. Little did they know that if the ball did happen to swing or seam, that by playing a big expansive drive any resulting snicks - even on Indian pitches - would carry to the slips, and yet another wicket towards deification would get notched up.

Your only blip in an otherwise exemplary career was your foray into county cricket. I remember little of your time at Worcestershire, but at Northamptonshire you should have felt at home. The pitch was slow and brown in colour - just like the one at Delhi - and the ambience was every bit as spartan. Perhaps the weather didn't suit, though there were rumours that there wasn't room for two great all-rounders and that Northamptonshire had ultimately to make a choice: Kapil Dev or Capel Dave.

Nevertheless, you can't be perfect all the time and hearty congratulations are in order. I'm sure you will celebrate with gusto, though, consummate professional that you are, I know you won't overdo the salt lassis.

Yours in medium-paced admiration,

D R Pringle