A fair sprinkling of international cricket stars, family and friends will be in attendance in a gathering to celebrate Sunil Gavaskar’s 75th birth anniversary this evening. It will be held at a restaurant in central London. The legendary opener’s son, Rohan, is looking after the organising part.
RevSportz has learnt that Gundappa Viswanath and his wife Kavita have travelled to London specifically for this occasion. Kavita is Gavaskar’s sister. Viswanath and Gavaskar are close friends other than being India teammates. Gavaskar’s wife Marshneil will be there, with Rohan and his wife and their two children.
A special guest will be Geoffrey Boycott, in spite of a recurrence of his throat cancer. He will travel from Cheshire — about 220 kilometres from London — only to attend the event. When Gavaskar became the world record holder for maximum Test runs, he overtook Boycott’s mark.
Among other former international stars, Clive Lloyd and Zaheer Abbas will be there in the gathering of around 50. Ashish Nehra will be there. Mark Nicholas, the prominent TV commentator and the president of Marylebone Cricket Club, will also be among the eminent personalities. Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly are also in the UK, but it could not be confirmed whether they will attend the programme.
A book commemorating the master batter’s 75th birthday will be launched at the function, which will start at 7.30 pm London time. Curated by Gavaskar’s friend Shyam Bhatia and journalist Debasish Datta, the book is titled ‘Sunny G’. It has tributes from 50 persons, including some of the biggest names in international cricket.
Among Gavaskar’s friends who will be at the central London restaurant is Vinoo Vadagama. He has an interesting connection with Gavaskar and his cricket. Vadagama was the person who saw skullcaps being sold in a store in Derbyshire. He recommended to Gavaskar that he used one and it became part of the batter’s gears in the later stages of his career.