The Rival XI - A team which can beat the Wisden XI

Sunil Gavaskar

Tests -125

Runs – 10,122

Average – 51.12

Hundreds – 34

It’s an absolute shame not to see Sunil Gavaskar’s name in the Wisden Test XI. Probably one of the best Test openers ever, Sunil Gavaskar was the first man to go past the milestone of 10,000 runs in Test cricket.

He was India’s first great batsman and the man who showed the world that Indians could handle pace bowling too. After scoring a mammoth 774 runs in his debut series against the mighty West Indies, Sunil Gavaskar went on to become the linchpin of Indian batting.

One of the best players of the new ball, Gavaskar showed his class by scoring as many as 11 hundreds against a West Indies side that boasted of the most fearsome pace bowlers during the 70s and the early 80s.