March 6 – First of many runs for Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar are the two names which stand as India’s finest record makers during India’s budding steps towards becoming a powerhouse. Gavaskar was the first Indian player to complete 10000 Test runs and ended his career as the all-time leading run-getter of the format. Tendulkar, on the other hand, is currently the leading run-scorer in the Test and ODI formats. Coincidentally, both the Mumbaikars scored their first of the tons of runs in a format on the same date.

March 6, 1971 – West Indies vs India in Port of Spain:

Sunil Gavaskar got his Test cap on March 6th in the 2nd of the 5-match Test series against West Indies. On a turning track, Indian spinners ripped through the strong Windies team to bowl them out for only 214 runs. The debutant walked out to bat with Ashok Mankad for the last 30 minutes before the stumps on day one. Gavaskar flicked a delivery of Vanburn Holder down the leg but the ball hit his pad and raced towards the fine-leg region.

The 21-year-old ran a couple on that shot to open his account as the umpire signalled it runs instead of leg-byes. Thus, Gavaskar got off the mark in Test cricket in a dramatic way. He went on to score 65 in his maiden innings with India taking a 138-run first innings lead. Gavaskar scored an unbeaten 67 in the 2nd innings in chase of 124. India registered their maiden win over the Caribbean team by a 7-wicket margin and take a 1-0 lead in the series.

March 6, 1990 – New Zealand vs India in Wellington:

Sachin Tendulkar made his International debut at the age of 16 in the 1989 tour of Pakistan. He made a decent start to his Test career and got a chance to play in the ODI XI as well. Sachin bagged a duck on debut by holing out the 2nd delivery he faced after which he was dropped for the remaining two ODIs of the series. Later in 1990, India started with Sachin in the playing XI of Rothmans Cup where the youngster bagged a duck again. Thus, he became the first and only Indian till date with ducks in first two ODI matches.

After missing out in the 2nd game of the tournament, Sachin was brought back for the 3rd match against New Zealand at the Basin Reserve in Wellington. He walked out to bat at No.6 with India struggling at 93/4. In the 31st over, he glanced a delivery from Shane Thomson towards fine-leg to open his account in the ODI format. Not many would have thought that Sachin will end up with another 18000 runs to his ODI tally. The 16-year-old made a 39-ball 36 with five boundaries before being caught behind off Thomson only.

India ended with 221 on the board and won the game by one run as Kapil Dev cleaned up Richard Hadlee on the penultimate delivery when the Kiwis needed two runs to win. Tendulkar was dropped from the next game as well but brought back for the Austral-Asia played in the following month from where he didn’t give another chance for his axing in any format in the remainder of his career.