Glad Sachin didn't make me look like a fool: Sunil Gavaskar

It comes as no surprise when Sunil Gavaskar, who was also known as the ’little master’ gushes about Sachin Tendulkar, who has a very special relationship with ‘Sunny’ . On the day Sachin announced his decision to hang up his boots, Sunil Gavaskar said Tendulkar’s departure would make cricket poorer forever.

Speaking to NDTV, Gavaskar said, “The Indian Test team has a hole to fill. Just like it happened after the departure of the middle order - Rahul Dravid, Laxman and Sourav Ganguly - this is not going to be easy. The number 4 position (the position at which Sachin batted) has been dominated by the great batsmen of the world and Sachin was no exception.”

He recalled how he had first heard of a young cricketer playing for Mumbai from former MCA Joint Secretary Hemant Waingankar. He said, “We were driving down to Mumbai airport on my way to play the bi-centenary test in 1987. Hemant told me about this cricketer who had scored a lot of runs but did not get the award for the best junior champion.”

Sunil Gavaskar went on to write a letter for Sachin, a young boy of about 16 then, and told him not to lose heart. “I literally wrote the letter on the bonnet of the car. After that I kept my eyes and ears open for this boy.”

However he recalled that Sachin didn’t get disheartened when he did not win the junior championship.

After all these years what was that one thing that made him the happiest about the ‘master blaster’? He said, “I am happier about the fact that I did not look like a fool. I had predicted that he will score at least a hundred centuries and 15000 runs in international cricket. He has done that and kept me looking sane.”