Sunil Gavaskar named his son Rohan after a rival team player who would secretly guide him to score hundreds

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The legendary Sunil Gavaskar, who is celebrating his 74th birthday on Monday, July 10, once shared an interesting anecdote revealing the reason why he named his son Rohan Gavaskar after the former West Indies cricketer. Rohan Kanhai.

Gavaskar married Marshneill Gavaska in 1974 and less than a couple of years after marrying, the couple were blessed with a son on February 20, 1976.

Gavaskar wasted no time in naming his son after a West Indies cricketer who helped him immensely during the course of the matches during his debut Test tour in 1971.

Rohan Kanhai, who played 79 Test matches for West Indies between 1957 and 1974 and scored 6227 runs including 15 hundreds at an average of 47.53, would secretly motivate Gavaskar and even score Gavaskar for lacking concentration and making errors.

“In my debut series, if I played a bad shot when crossing over me to go to the slips for the next over, if he (Rohan Kanhai) was not within earshot of the wicketkeeper, he would whisper in my ear: 'Concentrate! Don’t you want a 100? What’s the matter with you? He’s in the opposition, he’s not swearing at me, he actually wants me to get a 100. Unbelievable!” Sunil Gavaskar revealed renowned sports presenter Gaurav Kapur once.

In the series which saw Gavaskar make his India debut, Gavaskar went on to score 774 runs in four matches at an average of 154.80. Gavaskar's record for most runs by a batter in debut Test series still stands tall.

“Apart from his batsmanship, (why I respected Rohan Kanhai so much was because of) how he secretly encouraged me. Off the field, he (Kanhai) was one of the nicest guys I ever met. Naming my son after him was a no-brainer,” Sunil Gavaskar had added.

Sunil Gavaskar, in a career spanning over 16 years, became the first batter to score 10,000 Test runs. In total, he piled up 10,122 runs at an average of 51.12 in 125 Test matches. He hit a total of 34 Test hundreds in his career.