Joe Rooy recently completed 10,000 Test runs and is the 14th batter to touch the landmark. Sunil Gavaskar was the first player to scale 10k peak in the game’s longest format. The legendary cricketer amassed 10,122 Test runs in his career, including 34 hundreds in 125 matches.
In 1987, Gavaskar became the first player to reach the 10k mark in red-ball cricket. The little master scored 87 against Pakistan, but the game was halted when he was on 58, with the crowd in Ahmedabad mobbing him in the middle of the pitch.
Gavaskar had told the Indian Express that he was looking at the scoreboard. “I knew that I needed 57 runs. I normally don’t look at the scoreboard, but once you reach fifty, you get applauded by fans. So I was aware that 7 runs were needed,” Gavaskar told the newspaper.
“Once you get to that 10,000, it was magical as no one had done it before. It was like climbing Mount Everest for the first time.”
Gavaskar revealed how Kapil Dev arranged it with special permission in Ahmedabad, which is a part of Gujarat, a dry state.
‘Kapil managed to arrange champagne. He was the captain, and he organized, with some special permission.”