Sir Vivian Richards, considered one of the greatest batsmen of all time, picked his former Indian counterpart Sunil Gavaskar as his favourite Indian batsman of all times. In a virtual interaction on Sunday (March 2), when CricketNext asked the former West Indies captain to name his favourite batsman from among Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, and Virat Kohli, Richards, who went on to win two World Cup titles as captain for the West Indies in 1975 and 1979, said that Gavaskar got 14 Test centuries against the West Indies team, which had the fiercest bowling attack at that time, thus becoming the best in his eyes.
“I guess I would have played against Sunil Gavaskar. 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 that time, to me, you’ve got to put him with the very best. So that’s why I will say the same thing,” Richards, who’s a governing council member for the International Master League, said.
“I’ve seen him for long. 14 hundreds against one of the most fierce attacks that other batsmen would have dread getting on top of, and Sunil was there. Sachin, wow! What a guy! Look at the figures; that tells you. And in fact, this whole way about batsmanship was passed on by Sunny because of his achievements. Sunny to Sachin, Sachin to Virat; and many other princes are looking out there to one day be in that category too. Like I said, there are magnificent batsmen coming from India,” added Viv.
Gavaskar made his Test debut for India against the West Indies at Port of Spain on March 6, 1971, scoring 65 runs in the first innings and an unbeaten 67 in the second.
In his first series for India, Gavaskar played four matches and tallied 774 runs in eight innings with the help of four centuries and three fifties. His mark of 774 runs is still the highest achieved by an Indian batsman in a bilateral series.
Gavaskar’s 16-year-long international career saw him play 27 Test matches against the West Indies team, in which he scored 2749 runs, a record for any batsman.
