The former Test run-machine who turns 63 today

July 10, 2012

It is 25 years since Sunil Gavaskar called it a day. And twenty-five years is a very long time by any yardstick, any stretch of imagination. Yet, the world is yet to come across a Test opener who can approach the Indian in technique and temperament. It is at once a tribute to the class and quality of Gavaskar, who is celebrating his 63rd birthday today (July 10).

As an opening batsman of the highest order, Gavaskar ruled the world for 17 years -- from the day he appeared on the Test scene with a bang

(774 runs at 154.80 in the West Indies in 1971) till he felt he had had enough and hanged his prolific willow after playing a gem of an innings of 96 (out of India's disastrous innings of 204 chasing a victory target of 221) on a minefield of a pitch against Pakistan at Bangalore in 1987. There were many outstanding, world-class openers around -- Geoffrey Boycott, Glenn Turner, Roy Fredericks, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes and Graham Gooch, to name some of the prominent ones -- when Gavaskar was in his prime, but none of them had his talent and the resultant phenomenal success he achieved.

There was Barry Richards, too, but South Africa's barbaric policy of apartheid had relegated him to only first-class cricket in England and

Australia as the rainbow nation was banned from international sports not long after he had scored 508 majestic runs at 72.57 in four Tests against the mighty Australians in 1969-70 in what turned out to be his only taste of the heavyweight division of cricket. Maybe, just maybe, Richards would not have allowed Gavaskar to dominate world cricket for so many years and the way he did. But it was just not in his destiny.