Sunil Gavaskar

Full Name: Sunil Manohar Gavaskar

Born: July 10, 1949, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Major teams: India, Mumbai, Somerset

Batting style: Right-hand bat

Bowling style: Right-arm medium

Achievements:

• First player to score more than 10,000 runs in Tests
• One of the only two players to score centuries in each innings, three times
• Highest number of runs in a debut series by an Indian (774 against West Indies)
• Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1980
• Awarded Padma Bhushan

Sunil Manohar Gavaskar, popularly known as Sunil Gavaskar has been an Indian Cricket player and considered to be one of the all time best opening batsmen in the history of Test Cricket. Sunil is known for having set many batting records that lied unbroken for long years after some other batsman. He was the biggest Test scorer with the biggest number of centuries to his credit during his times. His record of scoring 34 Test centuries took 20 years to be broken when Sachin Tendulkar outclassed it in the year 2005. 

Gavaskar was especially quite good against the fast bowlers, and maintained a decent average of 65.45 runs against the super-fast West Indian bowlers. He also served as the Captain of the Indian Cricket team, although the team couldn’t fare much better under his leadership. In fact, during his Captaincy, the Indian Cricket team one played 31 Test matches without a single victory. 

Early Life 

Sunil Gavaskar was born on the 10th of July 1949 at Mumbai, and started playing Cricket right since his school days. In the year 1966 he was declared the Best Schoolboy Cricket of the year in India. He had scored 246*, 222 and 85 runs in School Cricket. He made his debut in Ranji Trophy in the year 1968/69 with a match against Karnataka although he scored a duck in the match and was out for a 0 score. But in the next match against Rajasthan he scored 114 runs and hit 3 consecutive centuries in the tournament. 

Test Debut 

The Test Cricket debut of Sunil Gavaskar was made in a Test match against West Indies played at Port of Spain on 6th of March 1971. He scored 132 runs in this match, getting India its first over Test victory over West Indies. In the 5th Test match between India and West Indies, he scored 124 and 220 runs in both the innings, helping India to score its first Test Series victory over West Indies, which was not repeated for a period of 35 years to come till the year 2006. 

One Day International (ODI) Debut 

Gavaskar made his One Day International (ODI) Cricket debut in an ODI match against England played at the Leeds ground on 13th of July 1974, where he scored 28 runs off 35 balls. 

Captaincy 

Sunil Gavaskar also stayed the Captain of the Indian Cricket team for some time, but his record as the Captain has not been much impressive, as a bigger number of matches he led the team into turned out to be drawn. He led the team to 47 Test matches, out of which 9 were won, 8 were lost and 30 were drawn. Under his Captaincy, the Indian Cricket team played 37 ODI matches, out of which 14 were won, 21 were lost and 2 went without any result. 

Sunil Gavaskar’s last Test match was against Pakistan played at Bangalore on 13th of March 1987, and he scored 117 runs in the match. His last ODI match was against England played at Mumbai on 5th of November 1987, and he scored just 4 runs in the match. 

Overall Performance 

In his overall Test Cricket career, Sunil Gavaskar played 125 Test matches and scored 10122 runs including 34 centuries and 45 half-centuries, with an average of 51.12 runs and a highest score of 236 Not Out. Regarding his ODI Cricket career, he played 108 matches. He scored 3092 in them including 1 century and 27 half-centuries, with an average score of 35.13 runs and a highest score of 103 runs. 

Other Achievements 

Sunil Gavaskar has been conferred upon Padma Bhushan, and had been appointed the honorary Sheriff of Mumbai in the year 1994. Having written 4 books upon Cricket, he has also been named the advisor of the Indian Cricket team, and the Chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee. In his honor, a Test Cricket Series between India and Australia has been named jointly after him and the Australian Cricketer Allan Border, as Border-Gavaskar Trophy.