Gundappa Viswanath, a jewel of the world: Sunil Gavaskar

Gundappa Viswanath

Batting great Sunil Gavaskar on Saturday did the honours at his brother-in-law and former India teammate Gundappa Viswanath's book launch and called the popular ex-India captain a jewel of the world. "I am really honoured to release the book of the one and only GRV. He is not only a jewel of Karnataka and India, but also the world," Gavaskar said at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, Kapil Dev as well as Roger Binny (Karnataka State Cricket Association chief) were also present at the launch of Wrist Assured, written in collaboration with mid-day's Bangalore-based cricket writer, R Kaushik.

"We will not have another Kapil Dev and we won't have another Gundappa Viswanath as well," said Ganguly.

Viswanath stressed that he was chairman of selectors when Ganguly was recalled to the Indian team in 1996 following which the southpaw scored centuries in his first two Tests on the tour of England.

Kapil, for whom Viswanath was a role model, said: "I don't read many books, but I shall read this one of 266 pages." Viswanath was quick to retort: "I don't have an innings of 300, so I made sure the pages don't exceed 300."

Viswanath thanked Kaushik for pushing him to do the book.