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Whether you like it or not – Sunil Gavaskar is the golden voice of Indian cricket. For us, he is both the driving and guiding force behind loving this game so much. Who would forget the ‘Sunil Gavaskar Presents’ TV series – the first cricket show on TV in the eighties which was a guidebook to know about the rich legacy of this sport. Forget about the exploits of Gavaskar playing without a helmet on uncovered pitches against a ferocious West Indies pace attack – even ‘the Netflix generation’ can’t complete a cricket conversation without considering Sunil Gavaskar’s point of view. He is a larger-than-life figure for us.
Even at 74, the passion with which he drives a cricket conversation is something no commentator can match, not even a towering Ravi Shastri. Why is cricket big in this country? It is because it generates opinions, and Gavaskar has taught us how to do so. He is the ultimate encyclopaedia. So, when he goes missing from the commentary box for some time, it is a matter of concern for all those who love the game after expressing his strong views on Virat Kohli.
Sunny Bhai, as fellow commentators often address him inside the ‘com-box’ reprimanded Kohli for his tirade against IPL commentators. He also rightly questioned the official broadcaster for running Kohli’s mindless remark against the cricket pundits ‘half a dozen times’ and few of the fans even asked him to apologize to Kohli for his criticism. Even some of the commentators were not sure if Sunny Bhai could tow such a line and talk about the official broadcaster like this.
But all those who talk about the game and are not even half as articulate as Gavaskar should know that he is one of the only voices in the country which calls a spade a spade. Otherwise, commentary is reduced to PR for players, and with so much restriction on what to say and what not to say, hearing Gavaskar is music to our ears. Some have gone overboard while there are sycophants who only talk to pictures. We have been hearing Gavaskar’s authentic voice for over four decades or so and questioning him means questioning the very foundation of this game.
The fact that Gavaskar has missed a few of the IPL games after the Kohli episode is said to be a coincidence because he is attending a family wedding. “It was planned earlier that he would be attending the function and would take off from the hectic schedule of commentating,” a source told CricBlogger. But not hearing his voice isn’t something some of us are used to. Even when the broadcaster messed it up by not sending Sunil Gavaskar to Australia to hand over the Border-Gavaskar Trophy when Kohli became the first Indian captain to win a Test series there in 2018, our Sunny Bhai was somewhere in Malad to air his thoughts on TV.
Hope to see ‘Gavaskar Sir’ very soon back on air!
