Sunil Gavaskar is undoubtedly a legend of the game. He is the first batsman to score 10,000 runs in Tests. He also broke the record of Sir Don Bradman of most no. of Test centuries. But he will also go down as the best coach which India never had.
Sunil has put his cricketing knowledge and experience to great use as a columnist for various publications. He is also a big figure in the World of cricket commentary. But he never showed any interest in being the coach of India.
Indian cricket had many coaches in the 1990s. These include Bishan Bedi, Ajit Wadekar, Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal, Anshuman Gaikwad, Kapil Dev and others. All these players have shared the dressing room with Sunil at some point or the other. The little master shares the reason why he would never have been a good fit as a coach.
While speaking on the YouTube channel ‘The Analyst’ he said “I’ve been a terrible watcher of cricket, even when I was playing the game. If I got out, I would be watching the match very intermittently. I would watch for a while, then go inside the change room or read something or reply to letters etc. and then come out and watch again.”
“So, I wasn’t the ball-by-ball watcher, like say GR Vishwanath is. GRV or my uncle Madhav Mantri was a complete ball by ball watcher. And if you want to be a coach or a selector, you’ve got to be a ball-by-ball watcher. And therefore, I never even thought about it… being a coach,”
Gavaskar stayed away from coaching. But this did not stop him from giving inputs to cricketers. The Indian Fab Four which consists of Sachin, Sehwag, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly often looked up to Sunil Gavaskar.
“Having said that, I’ve had people coming up to me. Not the current lot, but say Sachin, Rahul Dravid, Ganguly, Sehwag and Laxman. So I’ve been very happy to exchange notes with them… whatever my observations are. So yes, I’ve been able to maybe help them somewhere down the line, but on a full-time basis, that’s not something I could do,” said the little master.
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