Sunil Gavaskar
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50 free Sunil Gavaskar trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Sunil Gavaskar opened the batting for India for sixteen years and rewrote the Test record books while facing some of the quickest bowling the game has seen. He did it with a technique so tidy that rivals and team-mates still describe it as the model for anyone who goes in first. This quiz covers the whole story: the astonishing first tour of the Caribbean, the hundreds and the milestones, the on-and-off years in charge of the national side, the innings that infuriated crowds and the ones that thrilled them, plus his relatives, his books and his second career after retiring. It is written for cricket fans of every vintage. Some questions are gentle openers and a few are for people who remember the scorecards, and each answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In his autobiography, Sunil Gavaskar says he was accidentally swapped at birth with whose baby?
A fisherman
A fisherman's baby had been exchanged with the newborn Gavaskar until an uncle spotted the mix-up, remembering a birthmark near his nephew's ear.
Q 02Which protective gear did Sunil Gavaskar refuse to wear, believing it slowed a batsman's reflexes?
A helmet
A helmet was the one item Gavaskar turned down, yet he averaged 65.45 in Tests against the West Indies and their feared fast bowlers.
Q 03How did Sunil Gavaskar's 36 not out against England in the 1975 World Cup opener become notorious?
He batted all 60 overs
He batted all 60 overs for those 36 runs, facing 174 balls while India chased 335, and angry supporters ran onto the field to confront him.
Q 04Whose world record of 29 Test centuries did Sunil Gavaskar equal and then pass in 1983?
Don Bradman
Don Bradman's 29 hundreds fell within one series: Gavaskar drew level with a 94-ball century in Delhi, then went past him with 236 not out in Madras.
Q 05How did Sunil Gavaskar counter Karnataka spinner Raghuram Bhat in the 1981–82 Ranji Trophy semi-final?
Batting left-handed
Batting left-handed for over an hour, Gavaskar, who came in at number eight, kept Bhat out and made sure Bombay did not lose outright.
Q 06Which Australian captain shares the name of the India–Australia Test trophy with Sunil Gavaskar?
Allan Border
Allan Border was the natural pairing because, like Gavaskar, he had captained his country and passed 10,000 Test runs.
Q 07In which US state did Sunil Gavaskar open a cricket field bearing his own name in 2017?
Kentucky
Kentucky is home to the Sunil M. Gavaskar Cricket Field in Louisville, billed as the first international sporting facility named after an Indian sportsperson.
Q 08Which kind of song did West Indian singer Lord Relator write to celebrate Sunil Gavaskar's first Test tour?
A calypso
A calypso, the 'Gavaskar Calypso', followed the tour on which India won a Test series in the Caribbean for the first time.
Q 09Which Bombay schoolboy was given a pair of Sunil Gavaskar's own batting pads by the opener in 1987?
Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar got the pads as consolation for missing out on a junior award, and in 2005 he passed Gavaskar's record of 34 Test centuries.
Q 10Sunil Gavaskar's 774 against the West Indies in 1971 set the Test record for most runs in what?
A debut series
A debut series had never yielded so many: Gavaskar made his 774 at an average of 154.80, even though he missed the first Test of the tour.
Q 11Which nickname did Bombay-born opener Sunil Gavaskar carry through his 16-year Test career with India?
Little Master
Little Master was first the title of Pakistan's Hanif Mohammad, another small opener famed for marathon innings, before it passed to Gavaskar.
Q 12Which all-rounder traded the India captaincy with Sunil Gavaskar and lifted the 1983 World Cup?
Kapil Dev
Kapil Dev replaced Gavaskar as captain just six months before that triumph, then lost the job back to him in 1984 after India went 29 Tests without a win.
Q 13Which autobiography did Sunil Gavaskar publish in 1976, only five years into his Test career?
Sunny Days
Q 21Sunil Gavaskar's only one-day international century, at the 1987 World Cup, came against which team?
New Zealand
New Zealand's bowlers conceded an unbeaten 103 from just 88 balls at Nagpur, in what proved to be the second-last one-day innings of his career.
Q 22At which Indian ground did Sunil Gavaskar vow never to play again after a crowd pelted him with fruit?
Eden Gardens
Eden Gardens turned on him during a slow Indian innings against England, and keeping the vow two years later ended his run of 106 consecutive Tests.
Q 23Which royal organised 'The Grand Knockout Tournament', a 1987 charity TV special featuring Sunil Gavaskar?
Prince Edward
Sunny Days was the first of several books, and it was later bundled with Idols and One Day Wonders in a single omnibus volume.
Q 14Which Indian prime minister honoured Sunil Gavaskar at the Delhi ground after his 29th Test century?
Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi honoured him in 1983 after he hooked the West Indies fast bowlers for 121, reaching his fifty in only 37 balls.
Q 15Which Pakistan fast bowler called Sunil Gavaskar the most compact batsman he had ever bowled to?
Imran Khan
Imran Khan first bowled to him in 1978–79, when the rivals met for the first time in 17 years and Gavaskar hit two centuries in the Karachi Test.
Q 16Sunil Gavaskar's 90 helped take the 1986 Madras Test between India and Australia to which rare result?
A tied match
A tied match had happened only once before in Test cricket, in 1960, and this one was also Gavaskar's 100th consecutive Test, a first for any player.
Q 17Sunil Gavaskar stepped down as chairman of the ICC cricket committee so that he could keep doing what?
TV commentary
TV commentary and his newspaper columns clashed with the post, so the ICC's chief executive told him to choose, and he picked the microphone.
Q 18Which body appointed Sunil Gavaskar interim BCCI president in 2014 to oversee the Indian Premier League?
The Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of India put him in charge for the tournament's seventh season and, in the same order, told him to step away from his broadcasting work.
Q 19Which Australian bowler's lbw dismissal of Sunil Gavaskar at Melbourne in 1981 sparked an attempted walk-off?
Dennis Lillee
Dennis Lillee won the decision, and a furious Gavaskar ordered his opening partner to leave with him before India's manager stepped in; India still won by 59 runs.
Q 20In 2025, who became the first Indian since Sunil Gavaskar to score a hundred and a double hundred in one Test?
Shubman Gill
Shubman Gill did it against England at Edgbaston, 54 years after Gavaskar made 124 and 220 in Port of Spain.
Prince Edward conceived the game show, also known as It's a Royal Knockout, with himself, Princess Anne and the Duke and Duchess of York as team captains.
Q 24Sunil Gavaskar played the lead role in the film 'Savli Premachi', which was made in which Indian language?
Marathi
Marathi is the language Gavaskar grew up speaking, and he also recorded a song in it comparing a cricket match with real life.
Q 25On which Caribbean island did Sunil Gavaskar hit the winning runs in his first Test in 1971?
Trinidad
Trinidad staged India's first-ever Test win over the West Indies that week, and Gavaskar went on to score four Test centuries at Port of Spain.
Q 26Which West Indian fast bowler knocked the bat out of Sunil Gavaskar's hands at Kanpur in 1983?
Malcolm Marshall
Malcolm Marshall got his answer a Test later in Delhi, where Gavaskar hooked him for four and six on the way to a 94-ball century.
Q 27Which civilian award did President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy present to Sunil Gavaskar in 1980?
Padma Bhushan
Padma Bhushan is India's third-highest civilian award, and Gavaskar received it with seven years of his Test career still to come.
Q 28Which opening partner shared ten century stands with Sunil Gavaskar yet never made a Test hundred?
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan added 3,022 runs with Gavaskar in 59 opening stands and finished with 2,084 Test runs, 16 fifties and no century.
Q 29Sunil Gavaskar lost the India captaincy in 1979 amid belief that he was about to sign for what?
World Series Cricket
World Series Cricket was the suspected reason, though officially the selectors said Venkataraghavan had more experience of English conditions.
Q 30Which tournament, first staged in Sharjah in 1984, did India win under Sunil Gavaskar's captaincy?
Asia Cup
The Asia Cup began as a three-team round robin, and India beat both Sri Lanka and Pakistan to take the inaugural title.