Sunny Gavaskar, India’s original Little Big Man turns 75 on July 10th. Another feather in already decorated and illustrious cap; an innings superbly played. Sunil has been a man of multiple talents, being fearless in front of and in commentary box has been normal. Sunil has also been extremely articulate and one of the first from the subcontinent to have had a much longer innings in suits and microphone than in the whites or briefly the colored clothing. Sunil’s analysis and commenting has been a feature of this generation’s adolescent years and has played an important part in their fandom.
Gavaskar arrived on the scene as a promising lad from Mumbai factory which churned out batsmen like the West Indies could shake a tree and few fast bowlers would fall down. Gavaskar had a test player maternal uncle Madhav Mantri who represented India. Gavaskar arrived on the scene as a 21–22-year-old and was out on flight to visit and ply his trade in the land where people would not send their children to baptize their cricketing career, the West Indies. The team that Gavaskar faced had the likes of Sir Gary Sobers, arguably the greatest all rounder the game ever produced and Rohan Kanhai, Roy Fredricks, Clive Lloyd, quite a formidable line-up. Interestingly, team India fielded a fairly decent team and Gavaskar was the debutant there. This was a five-test series and team India handed over the cap to Sunny only in second test, injury ruling him out of first test.
Gavaskar started the series with a bang, anchoring the team to the first ever win in the West Indies in his debut test with twin half centuries, ended the series much stronger while scoring hundreds –hundred and double hundred in his adopted home Queen’s Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad scoring 476 runs at the venue. His series numbers were even more stupendous, and he ended up with a tally of 774 in his debut series, mere mortals don’t score that ever in their entire career and one can only wonder if he had played the first test, who knows how much larger tally he could have had. Those couple of decades was when West Indies fast bowlers were those mythical figures who batsmen didn’t want to face even in their dreams and here was a Mumbai boy who was facing them without helmets. Previous series in West Indies had 0-5 thumping for Indians and they definitely wanted to turn the ship around. Boy, did they do that primarily due to the heroics of Gavaskar and Dileep Sardesai alongwith the (trio actually, there was no Chandra in that series) and India didn’t just turn this around but triumphed in the series 1-0 and almost even made it 2-0, if not for Clive Lloyd’s heroics.
But then, this is about the man and not the team. West Indies, the collection of Island nations loved him and Lord Relator dedicated a calypso to Sunny Gavaskar for this magnificent awe-inspiring performance where no other batsmen in the world had stood up literally to the might of the West Indies fast bowlers and as this was a trailer, his seventeen years of test cricket was going to have few more sequels, although not reaching that total but he scored 700 runs again in the series this time at home against the West Indies. No other batsmen ever managed to score thirteen, yes whopping thirteen hundreds against the pace factory which never seemed to produce a battery of pacers. He was no slouch against the Aussies, Pakistanis or the English either, it is just that he fancied the world’s best bowling attack even more and reserved his best against them. Signs of the true champion, bigger the battle, greater the performance.
Gavaskar was the original copy book batter, a trait which he attributed to his formative years and how he had to curb his shot making by hitting the ball on the ground. This restricting constraint turned out to be India’s and World Cricket’s greatest gain as he hit the ball on the ground like no other and as he himself said, he was blessed with concentration to pair up with the technique and what transpired was case study in correct batting. A number of Mumbaikars plied their trade in Shivaji Park and in those days, even in places like H. D. Kanga League and other tournaments. Mumbai batters have always been hungry for practice, for runs, with a concentration to append to their technique which gets honed while batting relentlessly.
Mention Gavaskar and you also have to mention this blob on his legendary career. The first ever game of ODI world cups was a damp squib thanks to Sunny scoring 36 not out of 174 balls (60 over match) against the Englishmen as he thought that there was no way India was going to match to England’s 334 so he might as well get some batting practice and scored at a snail’s pace but then those were the early days of ODI cricket and obviously, winning the award for the slowest innings ever in terms of strike rate in one day cricket.
Gavaskar had a number of firsts in his storied career, he was the first to scale mount ten thousand runs and first to thirty hundred in test cricket. Batting for a long duration came naturally to him and like any other Mumbai batter, he put a heavy price on his own wicket and waited for bowlers to earn that. Like some other Mumbai legends including Sachin, he was the most vulnerable in his first few deliveries and once that storm was weathered, bowlers would be at his mercy. Gavaskar was also a disciplinarian and also spoke his mind, at times even dropping some of his best players if they showed up late to the team (Dilip Vengsarkar), drop for irresponsible shots (Sandip Patil and Kapil Dev) and wasn’t afraid of the backlash. Gavaskar and Bishan Singh Bedi were amongst the earliest advocates of higher pay for cricketers, and it was their efforts which kick started the movement where cricketers started getting paid better.
Gavaskar also had the privilege of bowling with the new ball as “fast” bowlers pre 1977 in Indian team were the ones who not necessarily bowled fast but bowled with a run-up and Gavaskar definitely fit the bill. Sunny was a great mimic and some of his Pakistani counterparts such as Javed Miandad and Abdul Qadir definitely were at the receiving end of some of his mimicry. However, legends of various teams Pakistan, West Indian, Australian, English, New Zealand held him in the highest esteem and even the great Don Bradman and Sir Gary Sobers two of the greatest ever cricketers had been highly effusive in his praise. Sunil was also India’s lucky mascot as India lost only two matches in 1983 world cup when he didn’t play. Sunny had a win of his own when he won the world championship of cricket in 1985 in Australia which was the next best thing to the world cup.
Sunny took his only test wicket of legendary Zaheer Abbas who was nick named Asian Bradman for his great scoring run and this wicket was claimed in the first test of 1978 series in Faisalabad which happened to be the debut of legendary Kapil Dev who actually was India’s first real fast bowler in a while and this was kind of Sunny passing the baton to the all rounder that you can take over from here. Similar scenario happened again, when Sunny decided to hang up his boots in 1987 after the superlative innings against Pakistan especially spin twins Iqbal Qasim and Tauseef Ahmed and baton was passed to another little master from Mumbai, Sachin Tendulkar who also played a similar lone wolf innings like Sunny’s 96 on wearing Bangalore pitch in Chennai in 1999 against the same opponent as if to validate that sunny had selected the right heir.
Sunny was blessed with the gift of the gab and an extremely articulate for a cricketer especially from the subcontinent. Schooled from St. Xavier’s high school had him be equally at ease as Malcolm Marshall’s bouncers and William Wordsworth’s words. This cemented his role as an analyst par excellence, commentator and to his credit, as mentioned above, he was also a great mimic and storyteller which accentuated his growth inside the commentary box as it was on the pitch. Sunny also had an astute brain and is a great reader of the game, akin to someone like Ian Chappell or Richie Benaud who shared their anecdotes and pearls of wisdom with their audience and were equally adept as cricketers, captains and leaders on the field and seamlessly morphed into the role of commentators. Sunny’s written books were amongst the first I picked up and had read all of his books, such was his simple, yet elegant writing laced with anecdotes.
Personally, have had the pleasure of meeting Sunny G on multiple occasions including during his playing days at Shivaji Park, in Canada when he was commentating for West Indies-Pakistan match and had good discussion with him when I conveyed my Mumbai roots to him, you could see glint in his eyes and then meeting him in Dallas few years back and again last year at the inaugural MLC. What fascinated me was great man was walking the steps he had set out to do in a day and taking care of his fitness while obliging to the fans. I have come out impressed more every time I met the man who has exemplified that he is as good as a person as he was a batter.
Wishing him many more years in his innings and thanking him for all these years. When I wrote Sunny G, it almost felt as iconic as Parle G, another Mumbai product who has done well in its innings. Sunny has been synonymous with excellence and one just needs to watch his batting for a perfect balance while batting.
