When Sunil Gavaskar advised Tendulkar not to let Wasim Akram put his arms around him

The launch of Rajdeep Sardesai’s book, ‘Democracy’s XI – The Great Indian Cricket Story’, witnessed the presence of several Indian cricketing legends. Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Ajit Wadekar, Mohammad Azharuddin embraced the occasion with their cricketing talks.

One of the notable revelations was made by Gavaskar about the time when he advised Tendulkar not to let Wasim Akram put his arms around him while walking out for the toss as the Pakistani pacer, at times, displayed his domination with the act.

“If you are walking out to toss with Wasim Akram, do not let Akram put his arm around you. It is pretty much patronising kind of a way, which sometimes they tend to do,” said Sunil Gavaskar according to DNA.

Praises for Kapil Dev

Another interesting discussion occurred about Indian captains in which Gavaskar pointed out the contribution of the legendary Kapil Dev as the leader of the side. He mentioned that the all-rounder filled the belief in every one of representing the country in the game.

“Kapil made everybody believe they can play for India and captain India. Before that, there was one ‘naam ke vaaste’ player from non-metros as a part of the touring side. Kapil was a flamboyant cricketer who got the crowds in,” further added the Little Master.

“Can’t imagine thinking of a player as anything other than a cricketer. It never occurred to us that he was a Maharashtrian or a South Indian. All that mattered was how good he was and how he could make our team win,” Gavaskar said.

Sachin Tendulkar also went on to praise Kapil for his captaincy. He said that under Kapil, it was all about cricket and the aim was to win always.

“There was no caste, creed, religion in cricket. We all had one goal, and that was to win,” said Tendulkar.