Sunil Gavaskar visited CSC

Sunil Gavaskar was born on 10 July 1949 in Bombay. Gavaskar had played only six first-class games when chosen to with India to the West Indies in 1970 – 71. He made his Test debut in the second Test against the West Indies at Port of Spain - Mar 6-10, 1971. His first eight innings in Test cricket were 65, 67 not out, 116 and 64 not out, 1, 117 not out out, 124 and 220, and he was only 21.

In his 214th and last Test innings - against Pakistan at Bangalore - Mar 13-17, 1987, Gavaskar made 96.

He played 125 Test matches for India scored 10,122 runs in 214 innings with 16 not outs and scored 34 Test Centuries which was a record until fellow Indian Sachin Tendulkar scored 35 Test centuries. Three times he scored Two separate humdreds in a Test match.

He made his ODI debut against England at Leeds on 13 July 1974 and his last ODI was also against England at Mumbai on 05 Nov 1987. He played 108 ODIs for India, scored 4966 runs with 1 century. He took 22 catches in the ODIs.

After retiring from Test Cricket, he was a match referee. He is currently Chairman of the ICC Technical Committee.

He was one of the Five Wisden Cricketers of the Year 1980.

"Sunil Gavaskar was one of the greatest opening batsmen of all time, and certainly the most successful. His game was built around a near perfect technique and enormous powers of concentration. It is hard to visualise a more beautiful defence: virtually unbreachable, it made his wicket among the hardest to earn. He played with equal felicity off both front and back foot, had an excellent judgement of length and line and was beautifully balanced. He had virtually every stroke in the book but traded flair for the solidity his side needed more. His record for the highest number of Test hundreds was recently overtaken by Sachin Tendulkar, but statistics alone don't reveal Gavaskar's true value to India. He earned respect for Indian cricket and he taught his team-mates the virtue of professionalism. The self-actualisation of Indian cricket began under him."

The Ceylon Sports Club was greatly honoured when he had lunch with some friends at CSC on Monday 19th March.

Two photographs taken with his friends and club officials.

Come again SUNIL.