Sunil Gavaskar, one of the legendary Indian cricketers, will turn 74 on Monday, July 10. He was on the same date in 1949 in Mumbai. In his autobiography ‘Sunny Days’, Gavaskar had written about how he could have become a Fisherman had his uncle not spotted that he wa mistakenly exchanged with the baby of a fisherwoman who was also born in the same hospital. Imagine. India would have deprived of one of the greaest cricketers to play the sport had his uncle not been aware. There’s more to the Gavaskar story than many of the young generation know.
We all know that Gavaskar was a part of the 1983 World Cup-winning team. But do you know that he was supposed to be the captain of the team in England. However, just a few months before the mega event, Kapil Dev was handed over the captaincy by selectors and the relationship between the two legends had gone sour for a while. But soon Kapil and Gavaskar burried their differences and played for Team India.
There’s one more fact that the world of cricket might not be aware of related to Gavaskar. That his sister, Kavita, is married to his India teammate. Yes, you read that right. But that cricketer is not from the 1983 World Cup squad. The name of this star India batter, who played for a very long time, is Gundappa Viswanath.
Sunil Gavaskar, armed with a movie camera, having a word with his sister Kavita and brother in law GR Viswanath at their wedding, March, 1978 pic.twitter.com/Y1PnHBlQ3k
— Rameshwar Singh (@RSingh6969a) May 31, 2021
Viswanath hails from Karnataka, and lives with his family in Bengaluru. Viswanath and Gavaskar have accumumated 16,000 runs between them. Gavaskar has two sisters - Kavita and Nutan. Nutan went on to play cricket. On the other hand, Kavita marrieda cricketer. None other than the classic right-handed batter Viswanath. The joke goes around in Gavaskar and Viswanath family that if Kavita had become a cricketer, she would have got great coaching tips on batting, from her brother and husband.
The one common factor between Gavaskar and Viswanath apart from the fact that they were both born in 1949, were classic textbook-style batters, is that they were both very shot, at around 5 feet 5 inches. Gavaskar played 125 Tests, stroking 10,122 runs. Viswanath played in 91 Tests, making 6,080 runs. Who knew the two of the greatest batters to come out of India will become brother-in-laws one day. But that is a true story and what a heartwarming story as well.
