In 1981, Gavaskar showed his hot-headed streak when he very nearly made India the first country to forfeit a Test match, the dubious distinction later attained by arch-rivals Pakistan.

Luckily for the team and Gavaskar, manager S K Durrani intervened and stopped the India skipper from leading his opening partner Chetan Chauhan beyond the boundary line following a controversial lbw decision against him. Gavaskar did not always see eye to eye with teammates like Kapil Dev, another iconic player, and there was a sort of musical chair-like competition between the great duo over India's captaincy in the 1980s.

To their credit they buried whatever differences existed and India went on to win the 1983 World Cup in England and the 1985 World Championship of Cricket in Australia. Gavaskar was pelted with fruits at the Eden Gardens in the 1984-85 season's Test series against England and vowed never to play in that hallowed arena for the rest of his career, a promise that he kept till he retired in 1987.

One of Mumbai's icons, Gavaskar was even booed by his home crowd after being dismissed for four by England's Philip DeFreitas in the 1987 World Cup semi-final at the Wankhede. Little did the crowd realise they had seen the last of the great batsman in India colours as that was his last ODI appearance for India, having played his final Test a few months earlier against Imran Khan's Pakistan in Bangalore. Gavaskar has turned into a media personality after his retirement, a no-holds-barred TV commentator as well as a pithy newspaper columnist, a vocation that later led to his resignation as the chairman of the International Cricket Council's Cricket Committee.