Sunil Gavaskar on Wednesday said that when Virender Sehwag arrived on the scene, he saw that someone was hitting the ball the way he had always wanted.
I always wanted to hit a straight six on the first ball of a Test match. I could do that only once, but Sehwag did that with regularity. He was a class batsman with guts in his batting.Sunil Gavaskar
The batting legend also said the current Indian team under Virat Kohli was “fulfilling my dreams”.
What Kohli and his boys have done is amazing. Such a run of Test wins is amazing. They are fulfilling my dreams.Sunil Gavaskar
T20 Has Done Fantastic Things: Sunil Gavaskar
At a program to mark the 40th anniversary of his book Sunny Days, Gavaskar was speaking to former India batsman VVS Laxman at the Sports Literary Festival Xolo Sportale in Pune.
On criticism of T20 format, Gavaskar said:
In fact T20 has done some fantastic things for the sport and in many ways raised the profile of the game. T20 offers action all the way through the match, but Test cricket I still believe is the ultimate form to judge a player. T20 has energised One-Day cricket and One-Day cricket in turn has energised Test cricket. The whole game of cricket has changed for better with a whole new dimension added to cricket. Now more runs are being scored and there is action all the time.
‘Kapil Dev Showed the Way’
Describing winning the 1983 World Cup in England as the best moment of his career, Gavaskar showered praise on Kapil Dev, saying he was an incredible captain.
The way he bowled on Indian pitches was a learning. He showed the way and now we have a lot of fast bowlers with a great bench strength to replace them in the side. That team had belief in them. We had defeated the West Indies in West Indies in a One-Day match, so we were quite sure that we could do it. Then our fielding was outstanding. All these factors came in handy to win the Prudential World Cup.
He advised the youngsters to shut off all the distractions when in the middle of the pitch if they wanted to excel in batting, he added. Speaking about his unfulfilled dreams, Gavaskar said, “I had a dream of getting (Rohan) Kanhai caught behind and then trap (Garry) Sobers leg before wicket. But it never happened.”
(With inputs from PTI.)
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