Sunil ‘Little Master’ Gavaskar Dubs Bhagwat Chandrasekhar The ‘Original Match Winner’

Sunil Gavaskar is known as the “Little Master” for his terrific batting feats against top-notch fast bowlers of his time. On Tuesday (Oct 7) evening, he described former teammate Bhagwat Chandrasekhar as the “Original Match Winner” of Indian cricket and that’s because as he said, India was not used to winning overseas before the polio-affected leg-spinner’s 6 for 38 in 18.1 overs brought down the mighty Ray Illingworth’s England at ‘The Oval’ in the summer of 1971. Gavaskar has been part of the Ceat Cricket Ratings awards for 27 years, but for the first time he held the award he received on behalf of the affectionately called “Chandra”, from Harsh Goenka, Chairman of the RPG Group. Gavaskar said that those days, Chandra was quicker than the team’s new ball operators in Abid Ali, Eknath Solkar and on occasions, himself and that he has never seen Chandra’s polio affected right hand as he always carried with him a full-sleeved shirt even while going to the bathroom. Gavaskar kept the audience at St. Regis rapt with an anecdote around how Dileep Sardesai prompted Chandra to bowl a delivery named after a race horse ‘Mill Reef’ and got rid of the stoical left-hander John Edrich who was bowled for nought in the second innings as England folded up for 101. Chandra was chosen for the Ceat Lifetime Achievement award for his 242 wickets in 58 Tests from 1964 to 1979 at 29.75 with two 10-wicket and 16 five-wicket hauls. He featured in 14 Test wins, nine at home and five overseas, including the historic series win against England in 1971, Auckland, Port of Spain and at Melbourne (6 for 52 and 6 for 52) and Sydney.