Legendary Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar has revealed a fascinating fact about his career. The 72-year-old who made his international debut way back in 1971, has disclosed that he never actually retired from international cricket!
Sunil Gavaskar, the original ‘Little Master’, broke and held numerous batting records to his name. He was the first batter to reach the 10,000 run mark in Test cricket, and also the first one to go past Sir Don Bradman‘s tally of 29 Test hundreds; he also held the record for most centuries, 34, before other batters came along.
The Mumbai (then Bombay) batsman finished with 10122 Test runs and 3092 ODI runs; in the limited-overs format Sunil Gavaskar notched just a solitary century in 108 matches, although playing an instrumental role in the 1983 World Cup triumph remains one of his greatest achievements in white-ball cricket.
The right-hander last played an international match was way back in November 1987, an ODI against England at Mumbai. He didn’t represent India again, however, Gavasakar claimed that he hasn’t officially retired!
Speaking on Sports Tak’s YouTube channel last year, Sunil Gavaskar said that he hasn’t “officially announced my retirement yet”. He shared an interesting story that led to the media and fans thinking that he had retired.
In 1987, Gavaskar was playing a first-class match at Lord’s and was unbeaten on 80-85 odd runs at stumps. Gavaskar recalled that it was something he had said at the press conference that made people believe that he had retired.
“No, I didn’t announce my retirement. I was asked by an English reporter in a press conference how important it was to score a century at Lord’s when I was unbeaten around 80-85. I told him that ‘since it was my last match, I would love to score a hundred, the venue didn’t matter at all’,” Gavaskar told Sports Tak.
“Honestly speaking, it’s 2021 and I haven’t officially announced my retirement yet. I have never given a letter to anyone. You can ask the BCCI whether I had made official retirement in 1987-88.”
Gavaskar admitted that he had taken a break from cricket, but didn’t hung his boots at that time.
“I only told the selection committee that I would be unavailable in the future. But not being available didn’t mean I had retired. Till now I have not given my official retirement letter,” he further stated.
Currently, the batting maestro is in the role of a senior commentator and continues to enlighten viewers with his great insights about the game.
