Gavaskar celebrates Chopra’s gold with jig, jalebis

Nottingham: Former India cricket captain and opener Sunil Gavaskar celebrated javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra’s historic gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics with jalebis and a jig on Bollywood song, “Mere Desh Ki Dharti Sona Ugle, Ugle Heeray Moti” while commentating on the first Test between India and England at the Trent Bridge here on Saturday.

Gavaskar, who was the first to reach 10,000 runs in the history of Test cricket, was joined in the celebrations over jalebis by former South Africa all-rounder Shaun Pollock and media personality Harsha Bhogle, who are his co-commentators.

“Mere Desh Ki Dharti Sona Ugle, Ugle Heeray Moti” is a song from the 1966 film, Upkaar and stars Manoj Kumar.

Chopra, on Saturday, made history by becoming the first-ever Indian to win gold medal in athletics at the Olympic Games. He is also only the second Indian to win an individual Olympic gold after shooter Abhinav Bindra won gold during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Chopra’s gold was India’s 10th in Olympic history. Eight of those have been won by the hockey team, the last of which came in 1980.

“It is really a big thing, an Olympic gold medal,” said Pollock whose country South Africa too has won a gold at the ongoing Olympics through swimmer Tatjana Schoenmaker and has a rich history at the Olympic Games with 27 gold, 33 silver and 29 bronze medals.

Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar called the effort big.

“The gold has come in athletics which makes it very big,” he said on air from the studio.

(IANS)