Sunil Gavaskar recalls his Man of the Match effort in a losing cause in his last Test match

The Little Master played his last test match against Pakistan at the Chinnaswamy Stadium

It was early summer in 1987 when the ‘Little Master’ played his last Test match at the iconic M.Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. India were playing host to Pakistan in the last of 5-match series, with all the previous matches resulting in a draw. Both teams were looking for one last opportunity to come out on top in the rather dull series.

The fifth test was also noteworthy for being the only test in the entire series to see 40 wickets fall and produce a clear winner. India lost the match by the narrowest of margins, despite a fighting effort from Sunil Gavaskar at the top of the order.

Pakistan had won the toss and decided to bat first on a turning track. They were quickly dismissed for a paltry 116, with the golden arm of Maninder Singh picking up 7 wickets. India, in reply, endured a late batting collapse and were dismissed for 145 runs in their first innings.

The visitors played cautiously in the second innings and put up 249 on the board, thus handing the Indians a target of 221. Sunny fought like a lone warrior, as wickets tumbled at the other end, and took 264 balls to reach a score of 96. Despite his brave effort in his last test innings, the hosts conceeded defeat by just 16 runs, thus handing Pakistan a rare series win.

In spite of losing the test match, Gavaskar’s gritty knock was widely applauded by his fellow teammates and senior cricketers. The patient knock showed the strong endurance of the Little Master in the longest format of the game and contributed to his great stature as an opening batsman.

Was not thinking at all: Gavaskar

Talking about that memorable test match, Gavaskar funnily enough, mentioned that he did not recall much of his innings. “To be honest, I don’t recall much. I just recall basically two deliveries because my focus, my concentration was such that I don’t recall much of that innings. I was just focussed on the next ball, so there was no time to think back on the previous ball and luckily I had got into that kind of state of mind where I wasn’t really thinking too much – I wasn’t thinking ahead at all, and I wasn’t thinking back,” he spoke in an exclusive interview to Wisden India.

The 66-year old’s marathon knock earned him the man of the match in his final Test and he recalls the time when he walked to the Pakistani dressing room to congratulate them. “I remember going into the Pakistan dressing room after the match got over to congratulate the Pakistan team,” he said.

“Javed Miandad, who had been standing at silly point all throughout my innings, came and hugged me and started to apologise for having said things to me. I told him ‘I don’t even remember what you said’, and he was surprised. While clearly I was – I am trying to recall now, many years later – able to hear some talk going on, my mind made me believe that he was talking to the wicketkeeper and not talking to me.”

The real reason for the defeat in Bengaluru, Sunny felt, was the weather, which had made batting difficult and the outfield much slower towards the end of the test match. “Just coming back to the Bangalore Test, I think we probably lost it because of the fact that there had been rain the previous day (the rest day) as well as on the morning of the game – early morning (day four). And while the pitch was covered, right around the boundary, it wasn’t very grassy.”

”It was a little bit muddy and that’s where so many of these byes that went over the wicketkeeper or some of the leg-byes that went, they stopped just inside the boundary which otherwise on the previous days would have gone for boundaries because that particular part would have been dry. So when you lose by 16 runs, you realise that if those only had gone for boundaries, then the result would have been different!”