IND vs ENG: Yashasvi Jaiswal All Set To Join Sunil Gavaskar In An Elite Club

IND vs ENG: Yashasvi Jaiswal All Set To Join Sunil Gavaskar In An Elite Club

For those who are familiar with Indian cricket and its historical run scorers, 774 is a revered number ingrained in memory. Sunil Gavaskar’s massive amount of runs as a 21-year-old in his debut series against West Indies in 1971 is more importantly a benchmark for greatness in a sport that is obsessed with numbers and records. It was a grand entrance on the big stage if there ever was one, and it also ignited a long-lasting romance between the Caribbean and the opening batter.

That standard set remains intact more than 50 years later. Yashasvi Jaiswal deserves all the praise in the world for having a remote possibility of breaking through that barrier. With one Test match remaining against England in Dharamsala, he is still 120 runs short of that total, but if you are not going above and beyond the left-handed opening batsman, it’s a tribute to the series he has already played in.

Also Watch:

He has amassed 655 runs at an average of 93.57 in four Test matches, including two double hundreds. With this kind of run, he joins the elite group of Indian hitters that includes Gavaskar, Virat Kohli, Rahul Dravid, and Dilip Sardesai as the only players to score more than 600 runs in a Test series. Gavaskar is the only other Indian to have scored more than 700 runs in a series; the fact that he accomplished this feat twice against the West Indies (1971 and 1978–79) speaks much about his prowess.

Gavaskar only lost one in a set of four Test matches in 1971 when he was bowled out for one in the opening inning of the third Test in Barbados. His other scores, which included 65, 67*, 116, 64*, 117*, 124, and 220, were indicative of his work ethic and mindset of Bombay batsmen who were unlikely to give up a lead.