From one Little Master to another! Sachin Tendulkar's birthday post for Sunil Gavaskar wins hearts
Sunil Gavaskar, one of India's greatest batters, turned 74 on Monday and wishes flooded the 'Little Master' across social media platforms. Among those was a beautiful message from Sachin Tendulkar.
FollowOne of India's greatest batters of all time, Sunil Gavaskar celebrated his 74th birthday on Monday (July 10) and wishes flooded across social media platforms for the legendary 'Little Master'. One notable wish for Gavaskar came from another 'Little Master' Sachin Tendulkar, who took to Twitter to post a beautiful message for the man whom he idolised growing up.
Also read: Happy Birthday Sunil Gavaskar - 7 iconic quotes of the legendary cricketer
"Happy birthday to my batting idol, the man we all wanted to bat like while growing up. Happy birthday, Gavaskar sir!," Tendulkar tweeted on the occasion.
Gavaskar, a notable member of India's 1983 World Cup-winning team, had held the record for the most centuries ever scored in a Test match. The Mumbai native ended his career with 45 half-centuries and 34 centuries to his credit after amassing more than 10,000 runs in red-ball cricket.
Reliving some of his greatest hits and records, some of which have lasted the test of time, is the perfect way to honour this cricketing giant's 74th birthday.
Gavaskar became the first cricketer to score 10,000 Test runs in March 1987, a feat that at the time no one could have ever dared to dream of, much less aspired to. The 'Little Master' had a stunning 10,122 runs against him by the time the legend gave his final speech and went into the cricketing dusk.
The number is startling in cricketing jargon, made even more so when one realises that they were achieved against players like Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Jeff Thompson, and Denis Lillee, to name a few, on some of the most inhospitable of surfaces.
For a good amount of time, Sunny held the record for the most Test hundreds. Gavaskar played 125 Test matches for India and registered 34 hundreds. Before 'Master Blaster' Sachin Tendulkar dwarfed it in 2005, the record appeared to many to be insurmountable.
The 'Little Master' scored 13 hundreds against the West Indies in 27 Tests. The Caribbeans were a formidable red-ball squad in the 1970s and 1980s, as history would attest, but where most batters would have failed or crumbled, Gavaskar succeeded and thrived, setting batting records against some of the most feared quicks in the world.
