75 NOT OUT
In a country where cricket is a religion and cricketers are Gods, Sunil Gavaskar, who turns 75 today, was one of the first of the many Gods to be worshipped by all Indians alike. Regarded as one of the best opening batters of his time, Gavaskar, through his magical batting, spread happiness between 1971 and 1987, when he played for India, featuring in 100+ Tests and 100+ ODIs. With his bat, which was nothing less than a magic wand, he converted the lethal balls into ordinary ones, scoring 10,000+ Test runs and 3,000+ ODI runs in his 16-year international career.
Born in a typical middle class Marathi family in Mumbai, Gavaskar took to cricket, following the footsteps of his maternal uncle Madhav Mantri, a former India cricketer himself. From playing cricket in the gullies of Bombay to holding the World Cup at the balcony of The Lord’s, Gavaskar’s journey is nothing less than a fairytale. And more so, because, he states, in his autobiography “Sunny Days”, that he was exchanged with a fisherman’s baby at birth. Imagine, what could have happened, if this accidental exchange would not have taken place. Perhaps he would have been playing with the fishing net instead of in the cricket nets.
Like any other aspiring cricketer, Gavaskar played plenty of school cricket. Scoring runs for fun, he carved a niche for himself as “India’s Best Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year” in 1966. Within a year, he made the cut into the Bombay state’s cricket team and continued to play khadoos cricket for the state for 15 years till 1982.
After doing the hard yards at the domestic level, Gavaskar broke into the Indian team in 1971. He toured West Indies for his debut series and started his illustrious international journey with a bang. Amassing a record 774 runs, at just 21 years of age, he took on the mighty West Indian bowling attack with relative ease to become the first and only Indian to date to pile up over 700 runs in a Test series. After his heroic effort, a Caribbean singer wrote a song “Gavaskar Calypso” to honour the Little Master’s stellar achievement.
In Pakistan too, he stamped his authority during the 1978-79 series. Pakistan’s pace sensation Imran Khan hailed Gavaskar as “The Most Compact Batsman” he ever bowled to. In the same series, he scored two centuries in a single Test and became the first Indian batter to achieve this magnificent feat.
A former India captain, India’s best opening batter of his time, and a World Cup winner, Gavaskar’s contributions in the field of cricket and his service for the nation earned him the coveted Padma Bhushan award. Further, in his (and Allan Border’s) honour, since 1996, India and Australia play a Border-Gavaskar Test series. Post retirement, Gavaskar continues to be associated with cricket as a leading commentator and a newspaper columnist.
While there are umpteen number of records that he shattered over the years and one could simply go on and on about Gavaskar’s masterclass, on this day, let us take a moment to wish the Little Master a very happy 75th birthday and pray for his innings to grow stronger and stronger.