When Sunil Gavaskar risked his life to save a family from hate mob

Stories of Sunil Gavaskar's batting mastery, childhood mischief, loyalty and courage flowed on a nostalgic evening at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) on Sunday, where the former India captain was honoured with the Golden Jubilee Lifetime Achievement Award by the Sports Journalists' Association of Mumbai.

On a fun night when Gavaskar's former teammates Milind Rege, Madhav Apte as well as his first captain Ajit Wadekar spoke about what made Gavaskar one of the most feared batsmen around the world, his son Rohan gave a chilling account of how his 'papa' saved a family from a hate mob after the 1993 blasts in the city.

"One of his (Gavaskar's) big characteristics is his courage. There was an incident in 1993 after the bomb blast, which left a real impact on me. We were standing on our balcony when a few days after the bomb blast, we saw a hate mob below our building. They had cornered a family. We knew they didn't have any good intentions towards the family.

"Dad saw that, he ran down and confronted the hate mob. He said, 'look, listen guys, whatever you're going to do to that family, you have to do that to me first'. Luckily, better sense prevailed and the family was allowed to go on its way. But it takes a special kind of courage to put your life at risk and confront the hate mob," Rohan said.

But the son then brought out the lighter side of his father as well, revealing why Gavaskar senior currently sports a pony tail.

"It all came about because my son Vivaan had a pony tail while growing up. When he went to school, he got teased a bit about it. He came back and wanted to chop the pony tail off. We spoke to him and said 'listen, it's OK to be different. It doesn't matter if you are teased at school'.

"But those were hollow words for him. But papa then decided to get a pony tail himself just to show Vivaan that it's not only OK to be different, but it's also cool to be different," Rohan said, as a smiling Gavaskar flashed his pony tail to the audience that included India head coach Anil Kumble and batting coach Sanjay Bangar among others.

As for the man himself, Gavaskar went down memory lane and spoke about how West Indies legend Garry Sobers would touch him for luck during his first tour as an international cricketer and why he thought Wadekar selected him in the India squad among others in fray.

"I had taken his pads off after he scored 323 in a Ranji game against Mysore. Taking those pads off certainly helped me get into the team. I think he remembered the fact that he needed someone to take his pads off," Gavaskar said with a chuckle.