Only 67 Test runs, but shaped Gavaskar's mentality, managed teenage Tendulkar: Why Wankhede still remembers him

67, highlighted by a double century against Maharashtra in a 1948-49 encounter that witnessed 2,376 total runs and nine centuries. More crucially, he captained Bombay to Ranji triumphs in 1951-52, 1955-56, and 1956-57, cementing the winning ethos that launched the team's historic supremacy.

Mantri also imparted an uncompromising discipline that directly guided his nephew, Sunil Gavaskar. When a young Gavaskar sought to claim his maternal uncle's India cap, Mantri insisted that the honor had to be earned rather than gifted.

That lesson endured through the 1971 tour of the West Indies, where Gavaskar declined to put on his newly awarded cap until he actually took the field for his Test debut. Mantri's demanding standard surfaced again after Gavaskar notched around 290 runs during a mammoth college partnership; rather than celebrating the tally, the elder mentor immediately questioned how the batter had surrendered his wicket.