Being Sunil Gavaskar!

Legend has it that Sunil Gavaskar invented cricket. Once upon a time, many, many years ago, Gavaskar went on a holiday to England, where he found a bunch of shepherds playing a unique game with a bat and ball.  The shepherds invited him to play and apparently lived to regret it. Because Gavaskar not only obliged them but batted for the next three days, scored a thousand runs and remained unbeaten.

But the fact that he turned 60 last week proves that cricket is older than Gavaskar. He was born in 1949, though historians believe that had he been born a few years earlier, he would have single-handedly won India freedom by challenging the British to a game of cricket, kept batting for five consecutive days and eventually driven the goras out of the country.

Gavaskar made his test debut against the West Indies in 1971 – that’s 10 years before Mahendra Singh Dhoni was born. When Gavaskar quit cricket in 1987, after becoming the first cricketer in history to score 10,000 runs, Dhoni was only six and had just started growing his hair long! If there’s anything common between them, it’s the fact that while Gavaskar adapted to life after cricket as a sports columnist and commentator, Dhoni switched from being a goalkeeper to a wicketkeeper.

But the world has changed since the time Gavaskar played cricket. The game has become shorter, the players leaner and their bats heavier. For example, today Gavaskar is worried that he’s a bit overweight at 78 kilos. Similarly, there was a time when Gavaskar reportedly prided on his 20-20 vision — until he met Lalit Modi, who also boasted of a 20-20 vision which he put to good use by calling it IPL.

It’s said that Gavaskar always wore something new when he went out to bat — a new pair of gloves, pads or even shoelaces. Today cricketers also wear something new when they go out to play — though it’s usually a new product endorsement deal. That apart, Gavaskar is reportedly scared of dogs — which could have been easily cured if he’d faced some of today’s players with their penchant for sledging.

Recently, when Gavaskar was introduced to John Buchanan as a coach, the Little Master looked baffled. “Coach?” he asked. “What’s that?” In his glory days, a coach was found only on the railway tracks.