From Sunil Gavaskar's heroics in 1987 to Virat Kohli's IPL 2016: How the Chinnaswamy has changed colours

A cricket lover's life is full of heartbreaking moments. For the Sachin Tendulkar generation, the Chennai Test against Pakistan in 1999, where the tail collapsed after a superlative 136 from Sachin to hand their arch-rivals a narrow victory, was heartbreaking. But for the generation before Sachin, the 1987 Test defeat at Bangalore against the arch rivals defined heartbreak.

Sunil Manohar Gavaskar, playing his last Test match, battled heat and one of the most treacherous batting pitches to carve arguably the finest 96 ever scored on a cricket pitch at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore. Surprised to read treacherous batting pitch and Chinnaswamy in the same sentence? You read it right. Long before the Chinnaswamy became a graveyard for bowlers, it was once a pitch that made the one of the best batsmen of all time struggle for runs. Once.

The 5^th Test match between India and Pakistan came to be the decisive one after the first 4 matches petered out to excruciating draws. What made it special was Sunil Gavaskar’s decision to call time on his long and great career. In an era where India-Pakistan matches were battles of attrition for the fear that a result would create tensions, the Bangalore track decided to buck the trend.

Early collapse for both sides

Pakistan were made to rue their decision to opt to bat after winning the toss as they folded up for a paltry 116 in the first innings, with the Bangalore track giving Maninder Singh the figures of 7-27 in his 18 overs of left-arm spin. Pakistan’s spin duo of Iqbal Qasim and Tauseef Ahmed then wrecked havoc as India barely managed to squeeze a crucial 29 run lead.

The off-spinner with a curly mop, Tauseef Ahmed, came back to haunt India as he joined forces with the plucky wicketkeeper Salim Yousuf to stitch a 51 run 9th wicket partnership that had worth its weight in gold to push Pakistan total to 249. This left India with 221 runs to chase, a mountain to climb on the final day of a track that had bared the demons it hid on day one itself.

Imran Khan didn’t even bother to bowl and straightaway unleashed the spin duo of Ahmed and Qasim on the Indian batsmen, although it was Wasim Akram who drew first blood by snaring Kris Srikanth and Mohinder Amarnath within the space of three balls.

A crucial ‘final’ innings

What transpired then were two contrasting stories unfolding at two ends. While Gavaskar was anything but his elegant best, he still was a picture of determination. On the other end though, wickets kept tumbling at regular intervals, making his task all the more difficult. The Mumbaikar still nudged, blocked and saw many balls whizz past his outside edge but yet managed to put away the bad balls to the boundary to hold one end up and keep the fight alive.

By the time the score inched 180, and Gavaskar was given out to a contentious decision, he had made more than half of the runs and saw only two batsmen from the other end enter into double digits. Sunil Gavaskar made 96 in 264 balls that included 8 boundaries. The other 10 batsmen managed 81 among them as India were skittled out for 201 to lose both the match and the series, and also a legend.

The new age Chinnaswamy

The Chinnaswamy stadium has completely changed its colour over the years since that epic match. In the ODIs involving major teams in last 15 years, teams have scored 300 without breaking a sweat. The last ODI at the ground witnessed Rohit Sharma score a double ton, James Faulkner registering the fastest ton by an Australian and a mind-boggling 38 sixes being hit. As a footnote, Vinay Kumar was smacked around the ground for more than 100 runs in his nine overs and has never found the favour of the selection since then.

As the curtains fall on the 2016 edition of the Indian Premier League today, and Chinnaswamy becomes the stage where all the drama will unfold, and the cacophony around Kohli’s 900+ runs and Gayle’s big hits grows louder, one can’t help but wonder whether this masterclass played on the same ground around three decades ago will even be remembered by the future generations? Will Sunny’s masterful knock scripted in conditions against the very art of batting get buried under the pile of runs scored in an era and on tracks ridiculously biased against bowlers? One can only wonder.