Imran Khan and Sunil Gavaskar were responsible for me almost failing my ICSE Board exams. It was 1978, India had travelled to Pakistan for three Tests. The Little Master, well the OG Little Master, Sunny, pretty much alone, was facing Imran, Sarfraz Nawaz, Sikandar Bhakt, and Iqbal Qasim,  surrounded by  hostile crowds.

My Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Maths preparations were screaming for attention, but watching these battles on my black and white ECTV was far more engaging. We had one channel — Doordarshan, that relayed the matches, uninterrupted. Sure, there was war on the borders but the battle inside the Gadaffi, Iqbal and National stadia, stayed untainted. What was played inside the stadium, stayed within the stadium, as Imran reverse swinging the ball and Gavaskar textbook square cutting and straight driving, was far more riveting than my textbooks.