What unites Kapil Dev, Jacques Kallis, Hardik Pandya on October 16

New Delhi: When you talk about world's greatest allrounders, Gary Sobers tops the list, and accompanying the West Indian legend in that elite group are India's Kapil Dev and South Africa's Jacques Kallis, both of who hold October 16 as a special day of their cricket life.

While Kallis celebrates his 42nd birthday on October 16, Kapil - one of India's legendary cricketers - made his Test debut on the same date in 1978 against Pakistan in Faisalabad.

Kapil was the first to break Richard Hadlee's longstanding record of Test wickets and finished his career with 434 wickets in 131 Tests with best bowling figures of 9/83 in an innings.  He also scored 5,248 Test runs with eight centuries and 27 fifties at an average of 31.05.

Interestingly, India's current promising allrounder Hardik Pandya also shares a special memory with Kapil and Kallis on Ocotber 16. 

It was on this day that Pandya made his ODI debut and received the cap from Kapil in Dharamsala last year during the New Zealand series.

Pandya's success as an allrounder has re-ignited hopes of finding a successor to Kapil, which remains the most elusive thing for Indian cricket since the Haryana Hurricane hung up his boots. 

Pandya has so far played only three Tests, besides 26 ODIs and 21 T20Is for India.

Kallis, who retired from international cricket in July 2014, enjoyed a glittering career for South Africa that spanned across 166 Tests, 328 ODIs and 25 T20Is. 

He scored 13,289 Test runs, including a staggering 45 Test hundreds and 58 fifties. His ODI runs stood at 11,579 with 17 hundreds and 86 half-centuries. He scored 666 runs in T20Is.