The legendary Kapil Dev, head of the three-member Cricket Advisory Committee that will appoint the next head coach agreed with his colleague Shantha Rangaswamy that skipper Virat Kohli’s opinion “needs to be respected”.

The World Cup winning former skipper however assured that his panel will do their job to the best of their ability.Kohli during his pre-departure press conference didn’t hide that he would love to see current head coach Ravi Shastri get another term.

Kapil lauded the die-hard red and gold fans over generations for their loyalty through the past 100 years.”I can understand up to one level players are important. But if any club survives for 100 years you must respect the spectators. They carry the club and the name.”In terms of rich tradition, he drew a parallel with the coveted Wimbledon, the oldest tennis tournament of the world.

This time the CAC comprising Kapil, Anushuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy will select the head coach with application deadline already ending on Tuesday. The incumbent Shastri gets an automatic entry in the selection process.

Despite a boycott campaign by a section of fans in the social media, India’s first World Cup winning captain kept his promise and received the honour from the club where he played an exhibition derby against Mohun Bagan way back in 1992.

“We respect Wimbledon because they have a tradition way of playing on grass. Don’t lose your tradition whichever side you come from. I am more fascinated with the fans than the team as they have been supporting the club for 100 years.” “Tradition is everything. If tradition was not there we would not have been recognised as a Bengali, Punjabi, South Indian, Tamilian… So we have a tradition that’s why we are here,” Kapil said, flanked by present and former India football skippers Sunil Chhetri and Bhaichung Bhutia.

With all the attention on India’s first World Cup winning skipper, Kapil said: “It’s not my day. It is football’s day.What people think about me is not important what we think about football is more. It’s me feel who more proud to be sitting with the legends of the game. I am by the way here.”

“It’s very unfair for me to give one name. A lot of people were there. In my time, Pele had already retired but Maradona was one who was the star and the ‘Hand of God’ moment. It was such a strong statement and printed in our hand. Today, we are lucky to see all the matches.