‘I've been a terrible watcher of cricket, even when I was playing’ - Sunil Gavaskar opens up on why he never coached any team

In his long and glorious career, Sunil Gavaskar has donned the role of batter supremely, scoring over 10000 Test runs and then acing the commentary game by giving his insights on the gentleman’s game. Gavaskar has performed both the roles gracefully and with style. One thing, though, he has not ticked to which a lot of people still are being surprised is the role of head coach of the Indian team.

Many of his fellow teammates the likes of Bishan Singh Bedi, Ajit Wadeker, Sandeep Patil and Madan Lal have ventured into it but not Gavaskar. Apart from commentary, the 71-year-old was also a great columnist for various publications, voicing his opinion on poignant matters of the game.

The Little Master, as is he fondly called, was quizzed about it on the coaching job to which he gave a very simple and straightforward answer.

“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. So, I wasn’t the ball-by-ball watcher, like say GR Vishwanath is. GRV or my uncle Madhav Mantri was a complete ball by ball watcher. 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… being a coach,” Gavaskar said on ‘The Analyst’ YouTube channel, in response to a query.

Sunil Gavaskar on the ‘Fab Four’ of Indian cricket

Although he was never seen in the role of full-time coach, Gavaskar though was available to give his valuable inputs whenever anyone one asked. The 71-year-old was an inspiration to Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly.

“Having said that, 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. So yes, I’ve been able to maybe help them somewhere down the line, but on a full-time basis, that’s not something I could do,” said the former India captain.