Even in 2025, Sunil Gavaskar continues to dominate the Test batting charts among Indian batters in England. The OG ‘Little Master’ was the first Indian batter to aggregate more than 1000 runs in England, until Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid came along. Gavaskar’s epic fourth-innings 221 in 1979 at the Oval remained the highest Test score by an Indian in England for 46 years until Shubman Gill recorded a career-best 269 earlier this month in Edgbaston.
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Gavaskar’s legendary Test career can throw up a long playlist of epic innings, starting with his 774-run initiation in the West Indies in 1971, still the record for most runs by any batter in their debut Test series. Despite stacking up a record 34 Test centuries during his time, Gavaskar still favours a quiet yet gritty knock from his early days on the international stage as his most satisfying innings. Forged in the maidans of Bombay, even the great Gavaskar was alien to all batting conditions, especially the dreaded ‘greentop’ that was commonplace in England.
Only months from his record-breaking debut in the Caribbean, where he smashed four centuries (including three in succession) in six innings, Gavaskar would arrive on his first England tour. The elegant right-hander would only tally 144 runs in six innings on his maiden UK trip, with a duck in his last innings at the Oval. And yet, Gavaskar would jot in a pivotal innings that he considers crucial to the development of a world-dominating batter in his time — a 57-run innings at Old Trafford, Manchester.
57 at Old Trafford, Gavaskar’s most satisfying innings
Speaking to ESPNcricinfo in 2014, Gavaskar would reveal how he would come up against a series of challenges as he prepared to open the innings alongside Ashok Mankad in response to England’s first-innings score of 386.
WATCH: Highlights of England vs India, 2nd Test 1971 at Manchester
Frosty weather, a treacherously green strip, so much so that Gavaskar could not make out the difference from the outfield, and a menacing English fast bowler, John Price, would offer Gavaskar an experience of a lifetime.
“We had never seen a greentop. It was bitterly cold. There was a slight drizzle where you do not go off the field, but it does freshen the pitch up. So the ball was moving and flying around.”
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As cricketing superstitions go, Gavaskar would never a sweater while batting and despite the chilly Manchester weather, he strode out to bat in his plain whites, something that he would later regret.
“I never used to wear a sweater normally. Never during the inter-school and even during the inter-varsity matches, some of which were played in the Delhi winters. So it was part superstition and partly the fact that I had never batted in a sweater.”
Gavaskar would then contend with the challenge from English seamers and Peter Lever and the fiery Price, whom he regards among the quickest bowlers he had ever faced.
“Price had a longish, angular run-up which straightened in the last ten yards. He was 6’4″ and was quick. He banged the ball in, had a good outswinger,” Gavaskar told ESPNcricinfo. “I reckon he was the fastest I played at the time. I was young and hence my reflexes would have been that much quicker. That was one of the fastest spells I faced before Thommo and Michael Holding.”
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Batting 163 minutes, Gavaskar fell caught behind off Price in a match that would eventually close out in a draw. While he negligble contribution to show in India’s historic series-winning game at the Oval, Gavaskar would return three years later as a superior batter, and start with his maiden Test hundred against England back on the very same ground – Old Trafford, Manchester.
“The 57, absolutely without a doubt (most satisfying innings). The conditions, the first outing on a greentop, the circumstances – all of that actually made it a turning point in my career.”
