When Sunil Gavaskar saved a family during 1993 Mumbai riots

Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar who was well known for batting without helmets against the fiercest of fast bowlers during his playing days, also showed a lot of off-the-field courage to save a family during the Mumbai riots in 1993.

Well, it was Gavaskar’s son Rohan who recalled the incident at an event in Mumbai recently where the batting maestro was presented with the Golden Jubilee Life Time Achievement Award by the Sports Journalists Association of the city.

"Another one of his characteristics is courage. I got to say there was an incident in 1993 after the bomb blasts (which rocked Mumbai), which left a real impact on me. We were standing on our terrace, right after the bomb blasts a few days later, when we saw a hate mob, and they had cornered a family,” Rohan was quoted by PTI.

"We knew they did not have any good intentions towards the family and dad saw that, ran down and confronted the hate mob," recalled Rohan who has featured in 11 One-Dayers for India.

Rohan also added that Gavaskar had then succeeded in dispersing the angry mob, in turn saving the family.

"He told the mob, whatever you are going to do that family, you are going to do to me first and then better sense prevailed and the family was allowed to go on its way. It takes a special kind of courage to put your life at risk and confront the hate mob and I guess, it takes special kind of courage to sort of face the kind of bowlers which he did in his career without a helmet.”

"People called it courage, someone may call insanity, but in my mind, it needs a special courage to do that.”

At the event Gavaskar was gifted, a memorabilia with details of his 34 centuries and a silver salver which were presented by former opener Madhav Apte and ex-Indian skipper Ajit Wadekar.

During the occasion, the senior Gavaskar also recalled how West Indies legend Sir Gary Sobers used to touch him for luck before the beginning of the day’s play during his maiden Test series in the island country under the leadership of Wadekar in 1971.

Gavaskar also revealed how Wadekar had hidden him in the washroom in the final Test so that Sobers could not get near him.

Gavaskar played in 125 Test matches and scored 10,122 runs at an average of 51.12.