How Sunil Gavaskar’s courage saved a family from the 1993 Mumbai riots

How Sunil Gavaskar’s courage saved a family from the 1993 Mumbai riots

Mumbai : Legendary Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar was known for his impeccable technique, defense, hunger for runs and ability to defy the fast bowlers without using the helmet. His monumental work in the middle of the cricket ground earned him the name of “Little Master”. Gavaskar , who showed his courage against deadly West Indies fast bowlers, showed similar courage to save a family from the violent mob during the 1993 Mumbai riots.
Rohan Gavaskar, the son of Sunil Gavaskar, narrated the incident where the intervention saved the family from harm and provided a lesson in his life.
“Another one of his characteristics is courage. I got to say there was an incident in 1993 after the bomb blasts, which left a real impact on me. “We were standing on our terrace right after the bomb blasts, a few days later, when we saw a hate mob, and they had cornered a family,” Rohan, also a former India player, was quoted as saying by PTI.“We knew they did not have any good intentions towards the family and dad saw that, ran down and confronted the hate mob,” he said. “He told the mob, ‘whatever you are going to do that family, you are going to do to me first’, and then better sense prevailed and the family was allowed to go its way.
“It takes a special kind of courage to put your life at risk and confront the hate mob and I guess it takes special kind of courage to sort of face the kind of bowlers which he did in his career without a helmet. “People called it courage, someone may call insanity, but in my mind, it needs a special courage to do that.” Rohan, who also played for Indian ODI team, was speaking at a function organized by the Sports Journalists’ Association of Mumbai, where Sunil Gavaskar was honoured with the lifetime achievement award. Sunil Gavaskar has wealth anecdote from his career during the 1970s and 1980s, but this incident gave him a life lesson. His courage was far removed from today’s media glare, looked at the lighter side of the things. He recalled how during his first test series, the 1971 tour of the Carribean, West Indies great Gary Sobers first dropped his catch but then used to touch him for luck, going on to scoring centuries. Skipper Ajit Wadekar though wasn’t amused, and once hid him in the toilet to prevent that!

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