Sunil Gavaskar Was The 'God Of Concentration', Says His Former Teammate

Sunil Gavaskar was the lynchpin of Indian batting line-up in between the 70’s to 80’s. He was a technically sound batsman and had almost every shots in the textbook. Gavaskar was the greatest opener to have played the game. His defensive techniques were brilliant as well which depicted the sheer patience the man had got.

Gavaskar had enormous talent and concentration which made him difficult to be dismissed. Even though he was a defensive batsman, he could help the scoreboard ticking with his technique and helped the national team provide solidity with his efforts. His former teammate Maninder Singh used to call him the ‘God of Concentration’.

Maninder Singh, who played 26 Test for the country, said that the reason for calling him so was because even though Gavaskar had no watch on his hands he gave it all in the 10 minutes of the practice and knew when to step out.

“I used to call him God of concentration. I’ll give you the reason for it. When I was in the team and used to see him go in the nets, nobody had to tell him about the last round. He used to be out of the nets, precisely after 10 minutes. Every time I used to look at my watch to track the time, it will always be 10 minutes from the time he went in to the time he came out and amazingly, he never had a watch on his wrist,” Maninder Singh told Hindustan Times in an exclusive interview.

Gavaskar was once criticised for his infamous knock of 36 not out in the 1975 World Cup in the 60 overs contest against England. He retired with 10122 runs in Test cricket with an average of 51.12. He accumulated 3092 runs in ODIs at an average of 35.13.