A lot of negative sentiments, a large part of which has been expressed by the Aussies here. He has had a fair few sharp things to say about Australia and it is only natural that a lof of Australians wont particularly like him for it. I have heard him in the commentary box for the past 10-15 years and he has been excellent. He says a lot of good things about Australians and Australian players too. It is only when he says some thing negative that it gets highlighted more but more often than not, it is him standing for his principles than any thing. For instance, he is a strong advocate of letting the ball do the talking and not indulging in a lot of sleding. He is critical of players from not just Australia when he feels that they go over board on it. He has been a great ambassador for India even post retirement. Sanjay Manjrekar adjudged him the voice of Indian cricket and some thing he aspired towards in an interview a few years back. I am glad that he is part of the Espn-Star commentary box along with the likes of Bhogle, Shastri.
Glad that you are there on the forum to present a balanced view, otherwise majority of the reaction in this thread has been over the top. People making statements like 'Gavaskar is a dick', 'He is a Jackass' etc are clearly derogatory and insulting to this great player. Unfortunately those have made those remarks are so called highly respected members and pointing such hipocrisy from them is considered blasphemy here.
It is also unfortunate that reputed writers like Haigh had to quote him from a book that was written 25-30 years ago to prove their point. In fact that quote is repeated and reproduced everytime someone wants to attack Sunny, it has happened so many times that its kind of irrelevant now and almost expected everytime someone has to take a piss at Gavaskar. No one knows what Gavaskar and his team mates went through in that particular test match and if the Crowd was indeed acting in the way he described in his book, then I dont blame him for calling them a mob and not cricket fans. If anything, it is Mr. Haigh's reputation that has gone down for bringing that issue to prove his point.
Everytime he talks about behavior people bring up his act in Melbourne test in 1982, okay he over-reacted, set a bad example, but apart from that has there been any other incident of that nature in his 20 year career ? He never sledged anyone, never initiated any sort of verbal abuse as a cricketer towards anyone. To me he played his cricket the way it should be played. He admires Aussie cricketers very much, He is one of the biggest fan of Richie Benaud and inspired by his skills as a commentator.
Although I believe that his commentating skills have fallen well below his own high standards, I still want him there. His comments are much more informative and more balanced than the likes of Healy's, Taylor's etc.
Last comment about Michael Slater - Liked his commentary very much until this series started. But he was aweful in this series.
