Sunil Gavaskar, one of the great Indian cricketers, will turn 74 on Monday, July 10. He was in Mumbai on this day in 1949. Gavaskar wrote in his autobiography ‘Sunny Days’ that how could he have become a fisherman if his uncle had not found out that he had accidentally switched with a fisherman’s child, who was born in the same hospital. suppose. Had his uncle not known, India would have denied playing this great cricketer. There is more to Gavaskar’s story than what the younger generation knows.
We all know that Gavaskar was a part of the 1983 World Cup winning team. But do you know that he was to be made the captain of the team in England. However, just a few months before the mega event, the selectors handed over the captaincy to Kapil Dev and relations between the two legends soured for a while. But soon Kapil and Gavaskar forgot their differences and played for Team India.
There is another fact related to Gavaskar which the cricket world might not know about. His sister Kavita is married to his Indian teammate. Yes, you read that right. But that cricketer is not from the 1983 World Cup team. The name of this star batsman of India who played for a long time is Gundappa Vishwanath.
Sunil Gavaskar, armed with a movie camera, talking to his sister Kavita and brother-in-law GR Vishwanath at their wedding in March 1978. pic.twitter.com/Y1PnHBlQ3k
— Rameshwar Singh (@RSingh6969a) 31 May 2021
Vishwanath hails from Karnataka and lives in Bangalore with his family. Vishwanath and Gavaskar together have scored 16,000 runs. Gavaskar has two sisters – Kavita and Nutan. Nutan went to play cricket. On the other hand, Kavita married a cricketer. None other than the classic right-handed batsman Vishwanath. The running joke in the Gavaskar and Vishwanath families is that if Kavita had become a cricketer, she would have got excellent batting coaching tips from her brother and husband.
Apart from the fact that they were both classic textbook-style batsmen born in 1949, the one thing in common between Gavaskar and Vishwanath is that they were both about 5 feet 5 inches tall. Gavaskar played 125 Tests, scoring 10,122 runs. Vishwanath played 91 Tests, scoring 6,080 runs. Who knew that two of India’s greatest batsmen would one day become brother-in-law. But this is a true story and what a heart touching story too.