It turned out to be a gloomy and heart breaking day for Indian cricket on August 16 as former Indian Test opener Chetan Chauhan passed away at the age of 73 after suffering multiple organ failures at a Gurugram hospital after being put on ventilator support on Friday night (Aug 15) post his health condition became critical.
Indian cricket has been blessed with some of the finest opening pairs which held them in good stead in both red and white ball cricket. While the current generation witnessed Sachin-Ganguly, Sachin-Sehwag, Sehwag-Gambhir and Shikhar-Rohit dominate attacks with sheer disdain in one day international cricket, India in the last two decades was fortunate enough to have Sehwag-Gambhir and Dhawan-Vijay who were the saviours to the long standing opening corrigendum for India in red ball cricket.
While India's middle order in Test cricket was always world class with greats like Gundappa Vishwanath, Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohinder Amarnath, Mohammad Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara to name a few; they lacked a quality opener with Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag being the only stand outs.
If go back four decades, Indian team was still finding its feet in the rigorous grind of Test cricket and their heroics with the bat came largely on the back of Sunil Gavaskar's prolific run scoring exploits up the order. Gavaskar had built a reputation of being arguably one of the finest technicians with the willow who opened the innings with technical finesse and mental fortitude.
Such was the impact of Sunil Gavaskar's run scoring exploits that one often tends to forget that the 'Little Master' had some decent openers at the other end who forged handy opening partnerships with the legend and helped the Indians brave some lethal spells of seam and swing bowling from the speed merchants of those times.
Gavaskar's 120-odd match opening stint in Test cricket saw him partner as many as 16 openers which included Anshuman Gaekwad and some flamboyant and daredevilish strokemakers like Krishnamachari Srikkanth but no one was as dependable and successful as Chetan Chauhan.
Chetan Chauhan played the perfect foil to Sunil Gavaskar when the 'Little Master' was at the peak of his prowess and hailed as the finest Test batsman in the world ... In the late 70s (1977-80) it was a routine sight to see Gavaskar and Chauhan walk out in the middle and kickstart an Indian innings in Test cricket. A gritty batsman with loads of grit and resolve, Chauhan was a silent assassin who went about blunting the opening burst which was unleashed by deadly seamers and helped the Indian team build a sound and solid platform in testing conditions on overseas soil.
Before the emergence of Chetan Chauhan as Gavaskar's regular opening partner in the late 70s, the Mumbaikar opened with Ashok Mankad, Abid Ali, Eknath Solkar and SS Naik among others.. in the early and mid 70s but none of his opening partners proved to be consistent and successful in the long run.
With India desperately looking for a Test opener to partner their seasoned campaigner Gavaskar, debutant Dilip Vengsrakar was used as a stop gap arrangement on the 1975-76 New Zealand tour but the experiment failed miserably. With Vengsarkar rightfully back in the middle order, Anshuman Gaekwad had some decent performances during the West Indies and New Zealand tour but failed against England in seam heavy conditions.
After a string of openers failing to provide the much required stability at the top of the order in Test cricket, Chetan Chauhan's return in 1977 after a eight year hiatus was a blessing in disguise. Chauhan made the flight 'Down Under' for India's famous 1977-78 tour of Australia and played his part as Gavaskar's opening partner in providing India with steady starts. 229 runs in 7 innings was not a bad effort against a pretty strong Australian seam attack of Jeff Thompson and Rodney Hogg.
Chauhan continued to impress as a Test opener in India's next test assignment against arch rivals Pakistan in their backyard. While Gavaskar outshone the rest with a staggering 447 runs, Chauhan made a noteworthy impact with the bat scoring 212 runs at an average of 42. One ought to remember that Gavaskar-Chauhan duo were up against a deadly Pakistani seam bowling attack comprising Imran Khan, Sarfaraz Nawaz and Co..
Chauhan continued to bloom with the bat in the home series against West Indies, Australia and Pakistan and undoubtedly cemented his stake as the number one choice to open the innings with the legendary Sunil Gavaskar.
Chauhan proved his real pedigree as a resilient opening batsman on challenging overseas tours of England and Australia. He was indeed the unsung hero with the bat in the hard fought 1981 IND-AUS series where he scored a gritty 97 at Perth and 85 at Melbourne to help India level the series 1-1. Chauhan bowed out on a high in his final Test series against New Zealand in 1981 where he outscored his more fancied partner Sunil Gavaskar.
During the 70s and the 80s, Indian cricket was headlined by the heroics of Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengarkar, Gundappa Vishwanath with the willow and Kapil Dev, Bishen Singh Bedi and the other great spinners with the ball. However, Chetan Chauhan's meaningful contributions as Gavaskar's most enduring opening partner often got unnoticed.
The Gavaskar-Chauhan duo scored 3010 runs at an average of 52.81 per innings. The steady pair put on 10 century partnerships and some of them came in challenging overseas conditions in Australia, England and Pakistan.
Opening the innings with Gavaskar in 35 tests, Chauhan scored 1875 at an average of 32.89 with 11 fifties. The major partnerships among many which underline the success of the stable duo was the 213 at Oval against England in 1979 where India almost pulled off a close win and the 165-run partnership at Melbourne where India secured an impressive 59 run win over the Aussies.
In the end, one could round off by saying that Chetan Chauhan was an unsung hero amidst a galaxy of stars in the Indian Test team of the late 70s.