Family matters: Vishwanath (in the back) with Gavaskar during the 1979 tour of England | Getty Images
THE NUMBERS MIGHT say otherwise, but brother-in-law Sunil Gavaskar believes G.R. Vishwanath was the better batter. The wristy Kannadiga scored more than 6,000 Test runs and was known to bail India out of sticky situations, often against great bowling. In his autobiography, Wrist Assured, co-written by journalist R. Kaushik, Vishwanath recaps his journey on the field with touching and funny anecdotes, talks about his bond with Gavaskar, and rates the best he played against and the Indian greats who came later. Excerpts:
SUNIL [GAVASKAR] had called me and I could see that he was very emotional. All these years, he hadn’t said a word about my drinking, but that night at the hospital, he told me, ‘Vishy, you have fought it out for India on the cricket field so many times, you have come out with flying colours in a crisis and won so many games for India. For you, this is nothing. You can easily stop this and win the fight for your family.’
His words shook me, they touched a nerve. Sunil had never asked me for anything all these years. I spent a couple of sleepless nights; I couldn’t get his words off my mind. In the past, several doctors had told me that it was time to kick the habit. Obviously, Kavita (wife) and Daivik (son) had requested me to do the same innumerable times. I would give in for a few days, but only for a few days. There was, however, a different kind of impact in what Sunil had said and how he had said it. I decided that was it. I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since.
It just goes to show that you don’t necessarily have to talk to each other regularly if you have the kind of connect Sunil and I have. I know we didn’t have more than a couple of 100-plus partnerships in international cricket, but even during those associations, we hardly discussed tactics or techniques mid-pitch, between overs. There was always a comfortable understanding as we communicated with our minds, not words. Our running between the wickets revolved around eye contact, not loud screams of ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Over the years, little has changed. To this date, our interactions don’t require the liberal use of the spoken word.
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FIRST THINGS FIRST. The square cut was my preferred boundary option, but there always is more to scoring runs at any level than banking on a specific stroke.
I am not unaware that people have been fascinated by the Vishwanath square cut. What I can tell you is that it was a stroke born out of necessity. My tryst with the cut began with the tennis ball, which invariably got big on you. I was a slight, thin boy with no power to speak of, and while I did play the drive and the flick, seldom would the ball reach the boundary. The cut, by contrast, didn’t require me to generate power entirely on my own, I could use the pace of the ball. I am not saying every cut I played fetched me four runs, but it had greater potential to cross the boundary than any other stroke. Over time, because I played it so often, I got quite good at it, though it also brought about my downfall a fair few times. On the so-called risk versus reward charts, however, I was seldom in the red; by a conservative estimate, I reckon more than 4,000 of my 6,080 Test runs came through the cut.
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APART FROM THE usual refreshments, there was bhang available too (on the mandatory rest day during the Ranji Trophy final between Karnataka and Rajasthan, 1974). Having had no previous experience of that drink, I was keen to experiment. Consequently, I have little memory of what happened for the rest of the evening, though everyone present later reassured me that I did nothing to embarrass myself. Apparently, after partaking of the beverage, I went and stood in a corner, facing the wall, sulking about my batting failures for two whole hours, impervious to the goings-on around me, despite the constant urgings of players from both teams to join in the entertainment and riotous story-telling. During that entire period, I was informed, Chandra (B.S. Chandrasekhar) kept laughing. Not at me, no. It was how he reacted to the new liquid in his system.
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I AM NOT TRYING to oversimplify when I say that it was just one of those days when everything I tried came off (97 against the West Indies in 1975)... two back foot strokes drove me crazy. I hadn’t tried to hit the ball hard, there was no full flourish, but the ball just sped off the bat like a bullet. The effect of my workout with customized ‘dumb-bells’—the Tiger [Pataudi]-directed buckets of water that had strengthened my wrists—was still evident. As I looked around, I realized that my shock was being reflected in the faces of the fielders. [Clive] Lloyd, Viv [Richards] and Kalli (Alvin Kallicharan) were looking at me like ‘Maan, did you really hit that?’ I was as surprised as them, considering I didn’t know that I even possessed that kind of punch! I heard claps and ‘wows’ from the slip cordon....
It’s an innings dear to my heart for the emotions it triggered in those who were at Chepauk that day. Even to this day, more than 45 years after that knock, I get letters and phone calls from strangers just to thank me for entertaining them. Every time I go to what’s now Chennai, all I hear is about 97 not out. Sometimes, I feel that’s the only worthwhile innings I have played! ...I think it’s safe to say that this knock defined my career.
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OUR INAUGURAL WORLD CUP face-off (1975) was against England.... We had little idea of how to approach a chase of this magnitude (335), comical as it might sound now.
The general consensus at the end of our reply was that it had been a bizarre run-chase—if you could call it that—and I can’t say I disagree. We comfortably batted out the 60 overs, finishing on 132 for three. I top-scored with 37, off 59 deliveries. Sunil remained unbeaten on 36, from 174 deliveries, with one four.
It’s Sunil’s story to tell, and he has done so many times. All I can say is that it was one of those days when nothing worked for him. Even when he tried to get out, he couldn’t manage that successfully. Then again, when you have played all your life trying to protect your wicket, it’s not easy to be dismissed by design. By the batsman’s design, that is.
Wrist Assured: An Autobiography
By Gundappa Vishwanath with R. Kaushik
Published by Rupa
Price Rs595; pages 277