Indian Bollywood actress Rituparna Sengupta (C) poses with actress Mouli Ganguly (L) and former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar (R) during the launch of a food product in Mumbai on April 22, 2013.
Former skipper Sunil Gavaskar todaysaid captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has become more assertiveand added that the faith shown on him by the Board and theselectors will spur him to do better.
If the captain has the confidence of the board and theselectors, it gives him confidence to employ tactics on thefield. It's a huge plus. Now that he is doing so well, it willgive him even more confidence, Gavaskar said.
Dhoni stroked a maiden counter-attacking double hundredto lead India to a comfortable eight wicket victory overAustralia in the first cricket Test here.
Sourav Ganguly, Sunil Gavaskar, Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee, Martin Crowe, Kapil Dev, Steve Waugh, Nasser Hussain, Vinod Kambli, Harbhajan Singh, Ian Botham, Imran Khan -- there are some people who live life on the edge. You are never quite sure which way they will fall or how to categorize them but for some reason you talk about them. They polarise opinion. They give rise to debate. You can either love them or hate them - but doing both is not possible.
But Tendulkar never quite fit that category. He was untouchable in that sense. He was universally loved. However, now, that seems to be changing. His retirement wasn't greeted by sorrow - instead, the world... no, only India, seemed strangely glad. It might be his bad run of form but even then it seems rather harsh.
The sight of Tendulkar batting in the middle brought a nation together and almost everyone realised how great a privilege it was. His mannerisms have been etched into our mind so much that most us can at least try and mimic him. Even Rahul Dravid gives it a go at times.
But now we choose to forget all of that. We choose to instead focus on his failings as a batsman; on his retirement; on his selfishness; on his age; on his legacy; on his brand value. The cynics will tell you he plays for money... for his sponsors.
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar says consistent criticism might have played a part in influencing Sachin Tendulkar's decision to quit one-day cricket and it would have been fantastic had he gone after completing 50 ODI centuries.
Tendulkar had been struggling for runs for quite some time, leading to debates how long he should continue playing and on Sunday he announced that he would no longer play ODIs. I think he really cares for Indian cricket. May be whatever he saw, read and heard might have prompted him to make a call. But I feel, he knows his body well, Gavaskar said. He is finishing on 49 ODI hundreds. I would have loved to see him get 50 centuries. That would have been fantastic, Gavaskar told NDTV.
On being asked that quitting ODI format would at least give Tendulkar a chance to play 200 Tests, Gavaskar said it should not be looked that way. We are looking too far ahead. If he plays the next four Tests, that will take him to 198 and the next two Tests will be later in the next year. It's almost a year down the road.
Nagpur: Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar feels young Virat Kohli is the future of Indian cricket and he is ready to take up the captaincy job from incumbent Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the aftermath of the series defeat against England.
England broke the 28-year-old jinx by defeating India 2-1 verdict in the Test series after the fourth and final match ended in a draw here today. Gavaskar said it is time the selectors look to the future as Dhoni seemed out of sorts in this series.
Till the fourth day of this Test I said there is no alternative to Mahendra Singh Dhoni, but now that Virat (Kohli) has come up with a 100 under trying circumstances I think he has discovered a good part about himself. I think he is ready to take on the mantle, the former India skipper said.
Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar Wednesday said it was 'incredibly courageous' of his contemporary Mohinder Amarnath to take on the Indian cricket board by revealing that the board chief overruled the national selectors when they wanted to remove Mahendra Singh Dhoni as the team's skipper.
Amarnath raised a storm by saying that N. Srinivasan, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), overruled the selection committee's decision to sack Dhoni after the team had lost all the four Tests in Australia last season. Amarnath was part of the selection panel, headed by Krishnamachari Srikkanth.
Gavaskar, reacting to Amarnath's sensational disclosure, told NDTV that if someone has the courage of conviction, he has to be admired.
