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During his 16-year-long international career, Gavaskar played 27 Test matches for India against the West Indies and scored 2749 runs with the help of 13 centuries and 7 fifties.
Viv Richards picks his favourite India batter. (Picture Credit: AFP, X/@ICC, Sportzpics)
Sir Vivian Richards, who is one of the greatest batters of all time, has picked his former India counterpart Sunil Gavaskar as his favourite Indian batter of all time. During a virtual interaction on Sunday (March 2), when the former West Indies captain was asked by CricketNext to pick his favourite batter between Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, and Virat Kohli, Richards, who won two World Cup titles with the West Indies team in 1975 and 1979, said that Gavaskar scored 14 centuries against the West Indies team, which had the best attack at that time, and that’s why Gavaskar is the best.
“I would have played against Sunil Gavaskar, certainly. And I think I would have mentioned this on many occasions that Sunil Gavaskar is the godfather of Indian batsmanship. Why do I say that? Because I would have seen Sunil a lot, as a player. Anyone who can score 14 Test hundreds against the best attack in the world at the time, to me, you’ve got to put him up there with the very best. So that’s why I will say the same,” Richards, who’s a governing council member for the International Master League, said.
“I watched him for quite some time. 14 hundreds against the best attack where other batsmen would have fear. Sunil came out on top. Sachin, wow, what else? Look at the figures; that tells you. And as I said, this whole batsmanship business was passed on by Sunny (Gavaskar) because of his achievement. Sunny to Sachin, Sachin to Virat. And certainly there’s a lot of other good guys out there waiting to be in that category as well. Because, as I said, India is filled with magnificent batsmanship,” Viv added.
Gavaskar made his Test debut for India against the West Indies in Port of Spain on March 6, 1971, and scored 65 runs in the first innings, followed by an unbeaten 67 in the second.
In his maiden Test series for India, Gavaskar played four matches, and with the help of four centuries and three fifties, scored 774 runs in eight innings. His tally of 774 runs is still the record for most runs by an Indian batter in a bilateral series.
During his 16-year-long international career, Gavaskar played 27 Test matches against the West Indies team and scored 2749 runs, which is the most by any batter.
