Ravichandran Ashwin’s remarks that in this era everybody in the dressing room is a colleague and not a friend may not have gone down well with many. Former Indian skipper and coach Ravi Shastri said that for him they were always colleagues who were buddies as well.
However, there have been friendships that have blossomed on and off the cricket field between players.
Sunil Gavaskar and GR Vishwanath
Former India Test opener Sunil Gavaskar and GR Vishwanath were the best of friends and later this friendship turned into a relationship. Vishwanath aka Vishy married Gavaskar’s sister Kavitha.
Vishy played 91 tests for India and made 14 centuries. He was the most reliable middle-order batsman in the 1970s. As a thanksgiving of sorts, once Gavaskar and others celebrated a surprise birthday for Vishy. The cake was in the shape of a bat. And Brijesh Patel said, “Arre, Vishy, yeh bat to mota hai.” To this Vishwanath replied, “Haan, agar mera bat itna hota to aur zyada maarta.”
When Gavaskar’s wicket was lost, he would invariably turn towards Vishwanath to salvage the innings.
Sachin Tendulkar Sourav Ganguly
Similarly, Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar were roommates when they were part of Team India. In one interview Ganguly said, “When I would go to sleep I would often observe him shadow practice till about 2:00 am in the morning.”
In one of the matches, when Ganguly told Tendulkar, “The two of us played really well today naa.” Tendulkar immediately pulled Gnaguly’s leg with a retort, “But I thought only I played…you were just watching from the non-striker’s end.”
Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag
Similarly, Tendulkar also had a very good friendship with Virender Sehwag. In Tendulkar’s own words, “Sehwag would sing Kishore Kumar songs while batting to avoid any lapse in concentration. And mostly often when I would tell him that there were enough runs on the scoreboard ad to proceed with caution that is when he would go after a bowler and hit a six. Over time, I learned there is no use trying to curate his innings. He will do it his way.”
Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh
A hilarious anecdote is of Harbhajan Singh shared by his close friend Yuvraj Singh. Yuvraj said, once a foreign coach queued up all the budding cricketers and they were being asked their names and the place they belonged to. Harbhajan was weak in English so he quickly memorised the sequence of questions and thought he would first say Harbhajan followed by his native place Jalandhar. However, when it was Harbhajan’s turn, the coach changes the sequence to “Where are you from?” To this, our man said, “Harbhajan.” And the answer to the next question “What is your name?” he said, “Jalandhar.”
MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja
Dhoni and Jadeja are also very close as friends. Jadeja mostly owes his career to Dhoni not to forget that Jadeja has produced some crucial knocks in all forms of games and has also been outstanding with the balls. It is Dhoni who monikered Jadeja as “Sir Jadeja.” A brilliant fielder, he would often be found lost in his thoughts in the middle of the field and that’s when Dhoni started shouting for his attention calling him,“Sir,” and Jadeja would respond with a shy smile.