Sunil Gavaskar Becomes First to 10,000 Test Runs — Ahmedabad 1987

Gavaskar had been chasing the mark across the 1986-87 home season after passing 9,000 in Australia in 1985-86.

He came into the Ahmedabad Test 58 short and reached the figure on the third morning.

Gavaskar entered the Ahmedabad Test 58 runs short of the historic milestone. On the morning of day three he pushed Ejaz Faqih to mid-on for a single, raised his bat to the small crowd, and became the first man to 10,000 Test runs. He was 34 at the time, in his 124th Test, with 34 hundreds (later 34 — a record that stood until Sachin Tendulkar broke it in 2005). The achievement crowned a career that began in 1971 with 774 runs in his debut series in the Caribbean, and that survived the bouncer barrages of Lillee, Thomson, Holding, Roberts, Marshall, Garner, Imran and Hadlee. Gavaskar retired at the end of the year after a brilliant 96 against Pakistan in Bangalore and an unbeaten 188 in the MCC bicentenary match at Lord's. The 10,000 mark stood as the high-water mark of Test batting longevity for nearly two decades.

“I owe everything I have to this game.”

“Sunny was the wall before the Wall.”

Gavaskar retired in November 1987 after the Reliance World Cup semi-final defeat to England.