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Surname was not an impediment, says Rohan Gavaskar

What’s in a last name? Plenty if you happen to be a Gavaskar. You live by it or live it down for good.

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What’s in a last name? Plenty if you happen to be a Gavaskar. You live by it or live it down for good. For Rohan Gavaskar, the biggest challenge was to have his own identity. He not only inherited the surname of a batting titan, Sunil Gavaskar, his own name Rohan Jaivishwa was derived from three cricketers: Rohan Kanhai, ML Jaisimha and Gundappa Vishwanath.

‘Gavaskar’ was the prism through which he was seen. If only he had been endowed with the same level of skill sets.  But to Rohan’s credit, he didn’t carry the heavy crosses on the field. He batted like Rohan Gavaskar, made his own choices, and as now ended his cricket career a content man.

“If I could bat like my father, I would’ve ended up with 10,000 Test runs and 34 hundreds,” junior Gavaskar told DNA. He insisted that having a legendary surname had never been an impediment. “If it wasn’t for him (Sunil Gavaskar), I wouldn’t have had cricketing genes.”

We reminded him about his domestic cricket days. Those who followed his first-class career claim that he was subject to many rough decisions, at times bordering on the dreadful. It was as if the umpires wanted to prove that they were undaunted by his last name.

“Yes, I did have my fair share of bad decisions. I don’t know whether the umpires were keen to prove a point or they were plain incompetent. You couldn’t have done anything about it. You can look at in a different way. Next time you just make sure that the ball doesn’t hit your pad,” he said.

Yet he retains fond memories of his playing days: 15 years of competitive cricket for Bengal and East Zone and close to 120 first-class games are quite a number. “I’ve been truly blessed,” Rohan said. “When you see the amount of runs scored by Bengal batsmen, I am third on the list. Only Arun Lal and Pankaj Roy are ahead of me and not by much. I look at that with a great deal of pride.”

How could he have not spoken about his international career which, at some point, did flicker briefly. He recalled his one-day debut in Brisbane in the 2004 VB Series.

Two not-out and figures of 9-0-56-1 may not make a compelling tale but there was one moment that stood out. He flung to his left to take a stunning return catch to dismiss Andrew Symonds. 

“I was told in the morning that I would be playing because Virender Sehwag was indisposed. I was asked to bat at three initially but the number kept going back and back and finally I batted at six. I had an opportunity to contribute with the ball. It was a great feeling because we won a one-day match in Australia after a long time,” he said.

There was something to suggest that the boy belonged. But his international career, regardless of his modest talent, never took flight. “I don’t think I batted higher than six. It wasn’t going to be conducive enough for good scores. I would get out in the penultimate or the last over,” Rohan reasoned.

“Obviously I could have done better,” he added. “Any cricketer worth is salt will say that he could’ve done better, that’s the nature of the game.”

Junior Gavaskar is excited about his new innings as a media professional. He is off to Dhaka to cover the Bangladesh Premier League, an opportunity to stay involved with the sport. He keeps his parting shot, just like his batting, simple: follow your dreams, work hard towards it.

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