Former India opener and captain Sunil Gavaskar, popularly known as the Little Master due to his extremely strong batting technique, has turned 72. There are many such unique records of Gavaskar, who had said goodbye to cricket 34 years ago in 1987, which have not been broken till date. Let us know about his similar top-5 exploits, which no other batsman has been able to match.
1. Most Runs in Debut Series
Gavaskar made his debut in the Port of Spain Test 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, Gavaskar 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 score so many runs in his debut test series. Also, this is also the Indian record for the most runs in a series so far.
2. Most centuries against West Indies
During Gavaskar’s career, the West Indies team was the strongest team in the world for most of the time. Caribbean fast bowlers were considered the most dangerous in the world, but the short 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. Submitted. 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.
3. Indians with most centuries in the fourth innings of a Test
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 the fourth innings of the match approaches, the pitch usually becomes quite bad. But Gavaskar was known for his excellent batting even on difficult pitches. 4 centuries in the fourth innings is still an Indian record. Sachin Tendulkar is second with 3 centuries and Mohammad Azharuddin and Virat Kohli are in third place with 2 centuries each. This record in the world is in the name of Yunus Khan of Pakistan. He scored 5 centuries in the fourth innings.
4. The only Indian to score a century in both the Test innings thrice
Sunil Gavaskar scored a century in both the innings of a Test match 3 times in his career. This is an Indian record even today. 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 an innings of 111 and 137 runs. A month later, Gavaskar played an unbeaten innings of 107 and 182 in the Kolkata Test against the West Indies.
5. Highest run-scorer in Test opener
In cricket, two opening batsmen land on the pitch simultaneously. The one who plays the first ball is called the striker opener or number-1 batsman. Sunil Gavaskar holds the record for scoring the most runs in the batting order at the number-1 position 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.
