When Gavaskar Shocked the Nation...

7th June 1975 - A historic day for world cricket. On this day the first match of the inaugural world cup was played between India and England at famous Lord's ground. A new chapter begins and no one knew at that time that this tournament will become one of the most popular sports event in coming years.

The excitement was at its peek as the home team England won the toss and elected to bat first. Madan Lal registered his name in the record book of bowling the first ball of the world cup whereas Dennis Amiss faced it. England took the full advantage of Indis's weak pace attack and infront of the home crowd scored a mammoth 334/4 in 60 overs. Thanks to Dennis Amiss who entertained the crowd with a brilliant century (137) and thus became the first player to score a century in the world cup. He was well supported by Fletcher (68) on the other end and a quick fifty by CM Old (51* off 30 balls) ensured England to cross 300 plus. Abid Ali turned took 2/58 and turned out to be the most successful bowler for India.

With a big target to chase, Everyone was expecting an interesting match with Indian batting centered around Sunil Gavaskar, G Vishwanath, A Gaekwad, Brijesh Patel etc. But to everyone's surprize Indian team gave a shock as they scored just 132/3 from 60 overs and lost the match by a massive 202 runs.

Legendry Sunil Gavaskar played one of his worst and the most controversial ODI inning of all time as he made 36* in 174 delivery with just 1 boundary. It seems that team India was playing a test match and no efforts were made to chase the score. Vishwanath added quick 37 from 59 balls but it was too late.

The inning was too low as per Gavaskar's standard that he later admited in his book 'Sunny Days' that it was by far the worst innings he had ever played."It was agony. Sometimes, I felt like moving away from the stumps, so that I would be bowled," he confessed.

“It left a very, very bad taste. He let the team down, the spectators down, the spirit of the game down. I don’t know what happened to him.” Srinivas Venkataraghvan (Captain in 1975 World Cup) in a TV interview

Ted Dexter, the former England captain who was commentating for the BBC, felt that Venkat should have pulled out Gavaskar from the field. Dexter said: “Nothing short of a vote of censure by the ICC would have satisfied me if I had paid good money through the turnstiles only to be short-changed by such a performance.”

We were all very surprised by the way he was batting. It was difficult to say what he was up to. Nobody, not even captain S Venkataraghavan, sent any instructions to him to change his tactics. When I was with him in the middle, we didn't discuss about the team's strategy or his or mine. I was too junior to say anything to him. I myself was conscious to prove my own ability - Anshuman Gaekwad (Opening Partner in that inning)

No one expected the Indians to put up such a miserable show, and Gavaskar was the chief culprit in this sordid drama - Denis Compton

The team manager for 1975 World Cup, G S Ramchand, reported Gavaskar to the BCCI for such slow batting. He also reported that this inning not only demoralised the younger members of the side but was also against India's best interests. Gavaskar was asked by BCCI to explain and justify the tactics he had employed against England. However, Gavaskar was given the benefit of the doubt.

The inning shocked the entire cricket fraternity across the globe and is a dark spot in otherwise a golden career of "Little master",... 

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