Sunil still Sunny at 60.

Sunil Gavaskar, one of the best cricketers to have lived in India, turned 60 today. If you ask me whether I have watched Sunny play, it is a plain no. I have never seen him play, hence the question arises how did I call him great.

One reason is his stats speak a lot. Though it is true that Stats don't convey a lot about the quality of cricket, I believe they are an important parameter to gauge an era which didn't have television coverage as these days.

There are two things which fascinates me about Gavaskar
1. The 774 runs (in 4 tests avg 154.80) he scored in his debut series at Caribbean in 1970 - 71
Though the Windies pace attack was at the foothills of ascent in the series, it cannot be treated with disdain as it had Boyce and Sobers in it. Any player scoring at such a frenetic pace in his first series is certainly special and Gavaskar illustrated it.

2. The next thing which comes to my mind is the 36* he scored in India's first World Cup ODI match. For an opener to carry the bat thru 60 overs and score just 36 is something which we cannot even dream now.
Even he wants to correct it if gets a time machine it seems.

Scoring 10,000 runs in Test cricket in an era which was not competitive as now must have required enormous amount of temperament, technique and concentration. And we need to agree that he scored them with elegance.

One thing beautiful about Gavaskar is that he never afraid to speak out against England and Australia dictating terms in the world of Cricket. Things have changed a lot these days, with India emerging a power because of the money it brings into the game, would be happy if he criticises that also.

And certainly he is one of my favorite commentators (Don't think Nadesh likes him much), he doesn't seem old enough to be 60 for me. Gavaskar is still Sunny at 60.

PS : Wrote this post on Sunny's birthday but forgot to publish it :(