Ex-batsman Gaekwad, who succumbed to blood cancer in Baroda last week, performed the job of handling the media during his India coaching years with aplomb; stories about himself were fascinating

India’s 1999 Cricket World Cup coach Aunshuman Gaekwad interacts with the media in Manchester, where India beat Pakistan on June 8. Pic/Mid-day archives

Aunshuman Gaekwad, who passed away last week just when we all believed that blood cancer hadn’t beaten him just yet, played by the rules.

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When I first interacted with him in the early 1990s, during his stint as a national selector in Gundappa Vishwanath’s committee, I couldn’t get a word out of him even on issues unrelated to selection. Things changed when he took over from S Madan Lal as coach in 1997. I found him most approachable, generous with his time and, at times, he even spoke about his playing days with no intention of blowing his own trumpet.

He told me what it took to earn a recall to the Indian team in 1983— 15 hundreds in competitive cricket. That year he had to tackle the West Indies yet again—on their home soil. He told me how confronting it was to tackle their quick bowlers as an opening batsman. “First you had to combat Mikey [Holding] and Andy [Roberts] and when one of them was taken off, in came [Joel] Garner and then [Malcolm] Marshall. Mikey and Andy would come on again. There was no respite,” he once told me. Incidentally, Holding and Roberts sent him messages of encouragement when he was battling cancer.

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