Former India opener and captain Sunil Gavaskar, popularly known as the 'Little Master'due to his extremely strong batting technique, has turned 72 on Saturday. Gavaskar, who had said goodbye to cricket 34 years ago in 1987, held many records in International cricket. There are many such unique records, which remain unbreakable even after his retirement.
Gavaskar made his debut in Test cricket against West Indies in 1971. Gavaskar scored 65 and 67 in that match and the Indian team won by 7 wickets. In 5 Test matches of this series, he scored 774 runs at an average of 154.80. This included 4 centuries and 3 half-centuries. Till date, no other batsman in the world has been able to break this record.
During Gavaskar's career, the West Indies team was the strongest team in the world. Caribbean fast bowlers were considered the most dangerous in the world, but the 5 feet, 4 inches tall Gavaskar scored 13 centuries in 27 Tests against the West Indies against the likes of Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts and Malcolm Marshall. This is still the highest number of centuries scored by a batsman against West Indies. Gavaskar also scored 2,749 runs against West Indies at an average of 65.45. Even this record has not been broken till date.
Gavaskar had scored 34 centuries in his Test career. Out of these, he scored 4 centuries in the fourth innings of a Test match. By the time during the fourth innings, the pitch usually becomes quite bad. But Gavaskar was known for his excellent batting even on difficult pitches. In this list, Sachin Tendulkar is second with 3 centuries and Mohammad Azharuddin and Virat Kohli are in third place with 2 centuries each.
Sunil Gavaskar scored a century in both the innings of a Test match 3 times in his career. He scored 124 and 220 in his debut series against West Indies at Port of Spain. After this, in 1978 against Pakistan in Karachi, he played innings of 111 and 137 runs. A month later, Gavaskar played unbeaten innings of 107 and 182 in the Kolkata Test against the West Indies.
Sunil Gavaskar holds the record for scoring the most runs while batting as an opener in Tests. Batting at No. 1, he has scored 8,511 runs in 186 innings, highest in the world. England's Graham Gooch is second with 7,598 runs.
