'He Could Get Away With Murder': Sunil Gavaskar's Teammate Spills Shocking Secret (Image Credit - X)
It is not the first time that former India all-rounder Karsan Ghavri has revealed some of the extraordinary anecdotes about Sunil Gavaskar, and it gives an idea of the authority and aura that the batting great used to command during his playing days. Gavaskar was considered as one of the best Test openers of all time and his on and off the field attitude sometimes left his teammates speechless.
Crawling to 36 off 174 balls against England in the 1975 World Cup was one of the most discussed instances in the career of Sunil Gavaskar. Ghavri recalled the time when his dressing room was completely disrupted by the fact that he refused to alter his approach even after a number of messages were sent to him by his teammates.
“We, as Indian cricketers, did not know how to play one-day cricket. In the first match, England scored 334, but when we came to bat, Sunil played out all 60 overs in that particular match. So many times, messages were sent, asking him to either accelerate or get out, trying to pick the pace. But Sunil Gavaskar was Sunil Gavaskar in the 1970s. He wouldn’t listen to anyone.”
Ghavri writes that Gavaskar defended his approach to the game by claiming to be practicing the innings because he would be playing Tests against England in the future. Gavaskar did not mind the ruling which was a shock to his fellow players and told the team manager to leave him alone.
Another episode that Ghavri recounted emphasised on the single-mindedness of Gavaskar with regard to his batting. He disclosed that the opener even refused to meet the Prime Minister of India once as he did not want to break out of his pre-batting habit.
“Sunil Gavaskar was all set. Padded up. He was sitting in the dressing room and concentrating. Raj Singh Dungarpur was there, and in the meantime, he was concentrating. Sunil was about to go out and bat in a few minutes. Raj Singh said ‘Come on, everyone. The Prime Minister is here. The introduction will take place. It will take just 2-3 minutes.’ Everybody went out, but Sunil said, ‘I am not coming’. He said, ‘Let me concentrate. My batting is important for me and my team.’ They left him alone.”
The dressing room visit by the Prime Minister was allegedly done to meet Gavaskar but the opener had his priorities on his cricket first and the occasion was one of its kind.
Such stories, according to Ghavri, reveal the fact that Gavaskar worked with a form of authority that nobody would dare to challenge. However much he was criticized or even pressurized by his group mates, he never gave up his belief either in a World Cup innings or even on a high profile visit by the leader of the nation.
In Gavaskar, his team mates had a frustrating yet inspiring ability to bend situations to his will. He was so big that, as Ghavri has phrased it, “he could get away with murder.”
In the period 1971-1987, Sunil Gavaskar created a niche as a most disciplined and powerful batter in cricket. The tales of his remarkable run-scoring statistics serve to point out a man of high character and total dedication to his career.
His teammates recall him as a man who revolutionized the Indian cricket thinking even decades later. It could be with the bat in his hand or by his unwavering self-confidence, but Gavaskar left his legacy that has not been broken yet.
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