There was no money, sponsors didn't make a beeline and foreign tours were an ordeal, but there were women of steel who believed in the old adage that "the show must go on." And Nutan Gavaskar was the first among equals, one of the torchbearers of the women's cricket movement in India back then in 1973.
Cricket icon Sunil Gavaskar celebrates a magnificent 75th birthday on July 10th. Rediff.com picks 15 facts about Sunil Gavaskar you need to know:
Sunil Gavaskar is known for his impregnable defence against the all-time-great West Indies pace battery, but the former opening batsman, who turned 67 on Sunday, had a weakness - glucose biscuits from Amchi Mumbai. This was revealed by his younger sister Nutan at a function organised to mark his birthday by the Legends Club at the Cricket Club of India. "He used to like those biscuits...Parle G gluco biscuits. West Indies was a long way off and (it was a) long tour, so he would like to have those biscuits for his tea or coffee, so whoever was travelling there, we would try and send those packets of biscuits for him," Nutan Gavaskar told reporters.
It was this day, March 6, in 1971 that Sunil Manohar Gavaskar made his debut in Test cricket.
When he ended his Test career, he held the following Test records: Most Tests (125). Most consecutive Tests (106). Most runs (10,122). Most hundreds (34). Most scores of 50 or more (79). Most hundred partnerships (58).
The Indian ladies are no longer bogged down by the timidity of the past and are more than willing to embrace the temerity of the present, says Dhruv Munjal.