When the legendary Sunil Gavaskar made his maiden Test appearance for team India against West Indies in 1971, apart from his well-wishers from family, friends, and his fellow teammates, there was this another secret admirer rooting for him from the field itself.
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No, it was not his partner at the non-striker’s end, but the legendary West Indies batter Rohan Kanhai, who had 15 Test centuries under his name across 79 matches for his team.
A few years later in his international career, Rohan would have taken such a special place in Gavaskar’s heart, that the latter would not even second guess to name his son after him when he was born on February 20, 1976.
How this former West Indies player cheered for Sunil Gavaskar during his debut Test series
During an interaction with renowned sports presenter and broadcaster Gaurav Kapur via his podcast, Gavaskar would remark how Rohan would whisper in his ear, and secretly encourage/cheer him to reach his three-figure mark when his teammates would not be looking at him.
So whenever he would play a reckless or a poor shot, Rohan would find an opportunity to somehow tell him to concentrate harder in order to reach his century.
No, this was not some sort of sledging or a certain mind game being played by him while fielding but he genuinely, as Gavaskar would claim, wanted him to get to a 100!
“In my debut series, if I played a bad shot when crossing over me to go to the slips for the next over, if he (Rohan Kanhai) was not within earshot of the wicketkeeper, he would whisper in my ear: ‘Concentrate! Don’t you want a 100? What’s the matter with you?’ He’s in the opposition, he’s not swearing at me, he actually wants me to get a 100. Unbelievable!” Sunil Gavaskar would remark during the podcast around three years ago.
Gavaskar reveals the possible reason for Rohan Kanhai’s words of encouragement
The ‘Little Master’ also went on to remark the possible reason for him being his well-wisher. There used to always be some sort of a tension between the African-origin people and Indian-origin people in Guyana.
Rohan, who was the first Indian-origin player to captain the West Indies, perhaps had this soft corner for Gavaskar playing international Cricket for the first time ever.
“Apart from his batsmanship, (why I respected Rohan Kanhai so much was because of) how he secretly encouraged me. There’s always been this issue between African-origin people and Indian-origin people in Trinidad, Guyana. Off the field, he (Kanhai) was one of the nicest guys I ever met,” Gavaskar further added.
