When fans booed the ‘little master’

Vaibhav Arora

Most of the cricket lovers in India have since their early years been fed on stories of how Sunil Gavaskar tormented bowlers around the world with his gritty batting. Gavaskar undoubtedly was one of the best modern day batsmen that the game has produced, with such wide range of shots in his repertoire that would make even the most seasoned campaigners proud.

However, a one day international played between India and England in the inaugural World Cup in 1975 saw an unlikely side of the master batsman that the cricket fans would better like to wipe off their memory.

One day cricket was quite new during those days, having emerged on the cricketing scene just four years ago with the first ever game that was played as filler after the first three days of a Test between England and Australia were washed out by incessant rain.

The league round of the grandest tournament in cricket saw hosts England take on India at the Mecca of cricket Lord’s. England, playing at home and with a strong line-up started as favourites.

Taking first strike, the England batters butchered the hapless Indian attack to pile up a mammoth 334 runs for the loss of 4 wickets in 60 overs. Dennis Amiss smashed a splendid 137 while Keith Fletcher supported him ably with a well crafted 68. Whatever little hopes the Indians had of pegging back the England total were taken away by a fiery 30 ball 50 from Chris Old.

While most of the Indian fans in the ground already started to leave, all was not lost as the Indians had to ensure that they got as close to the English total as possible to maintain their net run rate and keep them in contention for the next round of the tournament. Little master Sunil Gavaskar walked out with a few hopefuls still expecting a miracle. The wily batsman started his innings at a snails pace, batting as if in a practice session. When it became clear that Sunny would not start to accelerate even after seeing off the new ball, the crowd started to voice their disappointment, hoping that it would wake him out of his slumber and spur him into action.

All that was to be in vain, however, as Gavaskar continued with his draggy show and went on to carry his bat through the innings to remain not out on 36 off 174 balls. The scorecard read 132 for 3 off 60 overs. India had lost the match by a huge margin of 202 runs.

The Cricketer summed up the tourists’ perspective as "Dejected Indians were pathetically pleading with him to die fighting. Their flags hung limp in their hands. It was a perverse moment of self-inflicted shame."

Why the little champion chose to play such an innings remains a mystery. While team manager GS Ramchand argued that Sunny thought the score was out of the Indians’ reach and chose to take it as practice, there were rumours that Gavaskar was unhappy with the team selection and chose the occasion to voice his protest.

As far as Sunny is concerned, he opted to remain silent on the dreaded episode for years until he finally admitted that it was one of the worst moments of his cricketing career. "There were occasions I felt like moving away from the stumps so I would be bowled," he said. "This was the only way to get away from the mental agony from which I was suffering. I couldn`t force the pace and I couldn`t get out. Towards the end I was playing mechanically."

When the team returned back from England, Gavaskar had to face a lot of criticism as he was accused of disrupting the team’s atmosphere and not cooperating with the team management. However, no action was officially taken and the matter died a natural death with time.