“I’ve been a terrible watcher of Cricket”: Sunil Gavaskar once revealed why he’s not the apt person to coach the Indian team

During an interview a couple of years ago, the legendary Indian batter Sunil Gavaskar had remarked how the likes of champion Indian batters in Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag etc. had approached him during different points of time in their respective careers in order to seek some batting advice/tips from him.

“I’ve had people coming up to me. Not the current lot, but say Sachin, Rahul Dravid, Ganguly, Sehwag and Laxman. So, I’ve been very happy to exchange notes with them – whatever my observations are,” Gavaskar had stated.

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The ‘Little Master’ had once been appointed as the Indian team advisor during their home series against Australia in the year 2004, but had never considered donning the head coach hat of the team ever, despite being involved with the sport for quite some years now since his retirement.

Sunil Gavaskar once revealed why he’s not the apt person to coach the Indian team

During an interaction with The Analyst YouTube channel about three years ago, Gavaskar had come up with a rather peculiar reason for not for not even thinking of taking up the job of the Indian national team head coach.

As per Gavaskar, he rarely used to sit down at a place and watch the matches continuously, but would engage himself in some other lesser important activities and watch the match again for some period of time, even during his playing days.

A coach’s or selector’s job, as per him, requires him/her to watch the ball-to-ball proceedings of the entire match, and thus the thought of becoming the head coach never occurred to him.

“I’ve been a terrible watcher of cricket, even when I was playing the game. If I got out, I would be watching the match very intermittently. I would watch for a while, then go inside the change room or read something or reply to letters, etc., and then come out and watch again. And if you want to be a coach or a selector, you’ve got to be a ball-by-ball watcher. And therefore, I never even thought about it,” stated Gavaskar.

A renowned name in the commentary panel

The legendary Sunil Gavaskar has, however, has emerged as a prominent name in the commentary box during team India’s home and away bilateral series for quite some years now.

One could hear him commentating in both the Hindi and English languages, and it was just a couple of years ago when he had completed dedicating 50 years of his life to the sport of Cricket. Having retired from international Cricket in 1987, Gavaskar had begun providing his services as a commentator in 1990.