What will we say, then, when our grandchildren ask us, bats in small hands, as we sit, leaving through Wisden, settled before the fire — "Grandpa, did you really see Vishwanath play? Was his square-cut really such a wonderful shot? Was he as good as Gavaskar?" What will we say, looking down into those excited faces, just as our grandfathers looked down when we asked of Mushtaq Ali and Lala? What will we say of G R Vishwanath, of "young Vishwanath", of a man and a player whom Wisden could never capture with a thousand pages of statistics?

Gundappa Viswanath. Pic/ Midday archives