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Speaking exclusively on Star Sports during the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy, India batting legend Sunil Gavaskar spoke about how players feel after scoring a century for the country. He shared, 'Oh yes, oh yes, I tell you what, for your country, man, it's an unbelievable feeling! It's just an unbelievable feeling to wear your country's cap. That's the dream of every school kid. Then you know, you say to yourself, 'I don't want to make a fool of myself at the international level,' at least that's what I thought. I don't want to make a fool of myself. You know, even if I get 60-70, if I get into my first series, I get 300 runs, 250 runs, I'll be happy. I've not made a fool of myself.'
'But then, once you get a hundred, it's like an addiction. You want to get a hundred every time. It's like, 'Oh, I love it. I love getting a hundred. I love raising my bat. I love that little thump on my back when I get back in the change room with everybody.' That is, you know, I mean, it's just unbelievable. It just becomes an addiction. You want a hundred all the time. That's why there is so much, you know, deep gnashing and all that when you miss out on a hundred,' Gavaskar further added.
Gavaskar also spoke about Virat Kohli’s conversion rate. He said, 'It's like I said in commentary that Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Rafa Nadal, they are title winners. If they lose in the semi-finals, people say, 'Oh, they're not in form.' Anybody else getting into the semi-finals, you would say, 'Oh, what a wonderful performance.' Similarly, with Virat Kohli, because everybody is so used to him scoring so many hundreds quite regularly, when he doesn't score 100, even if he's getting 70-80—which a lot of guys will be very happy to get—people say, 'Look, he's not scoring runs.' And that is the reason why there was that feeling.'
'But then again, Indian fans, they're greedy fans. They're not going to be happy with their idol scoring only 60-70s. They want their icons, their idols, to score hundreds, and that is the reason there was this little talk about, 'Oh, he hasn't got a hundred since July 2023.' July 2023 is just about a year ago,' the former India cricketer added.
(With Inputs from Press Release)
