Cricket: How a bookstore helped Sunil Gavaskar to prepare for battle against the Aussies.

Back in 1977, a bookstore in Mumbai named Marine Sports played a crucial role in helping Sunil Gavaskar and his teammates to prepare for the tour of Australia which was around the corner. That particular year, even before the tour began, Australian cricket was going through a major crisis. The cause of the upheaval was due to the schemes of Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer. In the early period of 1977, he began contracting Australian players with the objective of signing them up for his World Series Cricket.

Top secret discussions took place between Kerry Packer’s emissary Tony Grieg and players of various countries which resulted in 35 of the world’s best cricketers joining the Packer Circus as it was sometimes called. A furious Australian board retaliated by sacking all the Australian players who had signed up with Packer for this rebel series.

They were all replaced by inexperienced newcomers and veteran Bob Simpson was coaxed out of retirement to lead the team. Hence, Australia’s squad contained six uncapped players. Not counting Simpson, all the others combined had played in a total of only 36 Test matches.

But that created a problem for India too. The Indian players had no idea of the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents and what to expect when the action began in Australia.

A brainwave

That was when Sunil Gavaskar had a brainwave. Back then there was no internet so if any research had to be done about the rival players, it would have to be done through books and magazines. Gavaskar used to frequent a bookstore on Gokhale Street in Dadar named Marine Sports. It was originally a shop for sports equipment hence the name was Marine Sports. But later the owners turned it into a bookstore which had a huge number of books on sports.

He asked the owner, Braganza if there was any book that had detailed information about Australian players. The owner replied that he would procure such a book from Australia and handed it over to Gavaskar within a few days. Braganza then contacted his sources in Australia and obtained an excellent book that contained many statistics and background information about Australian players.

Braganza then ordered it to be flown in immediately to Mumbai and as soon as the book arrived, Gavaskar rushed to the shop to get his hands on it. Armed with the information, Gavaskar was able to get a clear idea of the rival bowlers’ abilities. As a result, the master batter picked up a huge number of runs in the series. He scored three centuries in the five matches. He scored 113 in the first Test, 127 in the second and 118 in the third. The information about Australian bowlers was of great help to India’s ace batsman.

Bookstore became famous

After that, the book store as well as the helpful owner became quite famous and news reporters began to visit the shop to get stories. Speaking to a journalist, Braganza once explained: “After my father Bruno Braganza started this store in 1946, it became popular with sportsmen…Once Vijay Merchant came in search of a book.

“In the 1980s, even Sanjay Manjrekar and Sachin Tendulkar would drop in. But they would be looking for videos. At that point, I would have people in England and Australia record matches and then someone would bring me a copy immediately. Nowadays, many people, players, and sports fans come to buy books for their children. So the tradition continues. We try to help sportsmen by providing them with the information they need,” he said.