Sunil Gavaskar the, the legend of Indian cricket became the first batsman to cross 10,000 runs in test cricket on this day in 1987. India was playing against Pakistan at Ahmedabad. The match ended in a draw, but Gavaskar made history by becoming the first Mr 10,000.
First in History!#OnThisDay in 1987 Sunil Gavaskar became the First Player in Cricket History to reach 10,000 Test Runs (v Pakistan at Ahmedabad)
This was his 212th inngs, in his 124th Test. Play was stopped for more than 20 mins as the crowd went mad because of the milestone pic.twitter.com/atvcVatwgS
— Cricketopia (@CricketopiaCom) March 7, 2018
Gavaskar made a total of 63 runs in the match. His feat was an inspiration for future batsmen and helped India to gain respect and self-confidence in world cricket. Unfortunately, the tapes of the historic moment have been lost as per reports. In a reply to a query under RTI filed by Indian express, Doordarshan, which was the sole broadcaster at that time had replied ‘not available’
An article in India Today captured this moment as below :
Talk about small steps and giant leaps. On March 7, 1987, a quick single nudged through the slips to a Pakistani bowler named Ejaz Fakih took Sunil Manohar Gavaskar from his innings score of 57 to 58 at the Sardar Patel Stadium in rural Motera outside Ahmedabad. That run also took Gavaskar to a territory which, never mind the batsman, even cricket itself had never seen.
Several accounts of the match recall how the crowd rushed into the field to congratulate Sunil Gavaskar and disrupted the game for some time. Arnabha Sengupta, a cricket historian and a writer at Cricket County described the moment as below.
That was the Test that saw the scaling of the Everest of batsmanship. After 16 years of splendid service to the game, on the third afternoon of the Ahmedabad Test match, Sunil Gavaskar late cut Ijaz Faqih and ran down the pitch with his bat raised high. For someone who did not watch the scoreboard while batting, Gavaskar was well aware of the runs against his name. He was edgy as well. He had every right to be. He was about to become the first man whose collection of Test runs ran into five figures. That brace he got with the fine deflection got him his 10,000th Test run.
In spite of the lack of a video record of this huge moment, we can still be proud that an Indian managed to reach this milestone in cricket.
