Sunil Gavaskar: Cricket in the blood – Almanack tribute

Sunil Gavaskar was born in Bombay with the scent of bat oil in his nostrils, for his father was still a very active club cricketer and his uncle from his mother’s side, M. K. Mantri, was Bombay’s and India’s wicketkeeper. In the circumstances, it was no surprise that a toy cricket bat was among his earliest possessions, and that the infant Gavaskar’s afternoon naps were followed by practice against the bowling of a doting mother and the houseboy.

The most prolific Indian batsman ever in Test cricket says that he learnt to read numbers from scoreboards. While children of his age went to bed listening to tales of Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks, Gavaskar had his little ears trained to the radio and the voices of John Arlott and Rex Alston describing the Test matches of 1952, in which uncle Madhav was engaged. For him, the big bad wolf was F. S. Trueman.

Although he missed the first Test – in fact, he did not play at all on the Jamaica leg of the tour because of an infected fingernail – Gavaskar aggregated 774 runs in that, his first series. After scoring 65 and 67 not out in his maiden Test (the one in which India beat West Indies for the first time) Gavaskar had already notched up two centuries, in the third and fourth Tests, before performing his tremendous feat in the fifth.

When Gavaskar went on that tour, he had played only six first-class games, but already had three hundreds to his name, the first in his maiden Ranji Trophy final. His potential as a consistent run-getter was apparent from an early age. His first hundred was made aged 13, in the junior Bombay schools tournament, for the Giles Shield. By 14, he was playing among adolescents in the All-India Schools’ competition, and at 16 he had his first taste of representative cricket, playing for Indian Schools against the touring London Schoolboys. In his first innings against them, he inevitably made a hundred.

Immediately after his phenomenal debut in the West Indies, Gavaskar had a good tour of England, although his Test scores were not quite compatible with his triumphs in the Caribbean. In the following winter, he opened for the Rest of the World in the series against Australia, which replaced the cancelled South African tour. Again, his record was modest, although Gavaskar maintains that playing in the same side as Sobers and Kanhai at that early stage of his career, and the experience of Australian pitches, prepared him for his later achievements.

After his double-century in Trinidad, there was a gap of seven Test matches and the five representative games in Australia before Gavaskar compiled his next Test hundred, against England at Old Trafford in 1974, which he himself regards as his best innings. He has not looked back since, and on two more occasions he has scored separate hundreds in a Test match.

As is obvious from Gavaskar’s Test record, he is capable of intense concentration and discipline. But he summons these virtues only when India are in trouble or when he senses the chance of a win. He is not one for making big scores just for the sake of records. When he sets his sights high, he builds his innings with meticulous craftsmanship, limiting himself to the stroke he plays best – drives through the covers, past the bowler, and between mid-on and mid-wicket. But when he lets his hair down, his range of shots and the power behind them are quite astonishing. He can lay claims to a six at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. As an exhibition of brilliant batsmanship in a Test match, his 205 against West Indies at Bombay two winters ago was outstanding.

An executive with a textile firm, Gavaskar, educated at St Xavier’s School and St Xavier’s College, is married and has a son, named after his boyhood hero and one-time West Indian adversary, Rohan Kanhai. Gavaskar’s sister Kavita (means poetry) is married to the other Indian batting genius, Gundappa Viswanath. It is mind-boggling to contemplate the talent of their offspring – when he arrives.

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