Seventy years of international cricket is neither a very long
time nor a very short period but it is a duration for which some
introspection can, and should, be made
Partab Ramchand29-Jun-2002Seventy years of international cricket is neither a very long
time nor a very short period but it is a duration for which some
introspection can, and should, be made. On June 25, when Indian
cricket completed seven decades in the international arena,
reflections predictably were mixed. During this period, Indian
cricket had seen it all – the ups and downs, the heady triumphs
and the disastrous defeats, the glorious and seamy aspects of the
game.Interestingly enough, the Indian team is right now in England
where it all started on a summer day in 1932. CK Nayudu led his
men down the pavilion steps at Lord’s to take on the might of
England. The opposing captain was the redoubtable Douglas Jardine
and, though, the thought of Bodyline had not yet entered his
mind, he remained a shrewd and ruthlessly efficient leader. He
was not going to take the babes of international cricket lightly
and it is good that he didn’t.For, within an hour, England were 19 for three. In Neville
Cardus’ immortal prose, the sombre, yet thrilling, mood has been
captured. Though India lost the inaugural Test match by 158 runs,
they earned a lot of respect with Nayudu, Mohammad Nissar and
Amar Singh coming in for special praise.Soon players like Lala Amarnath, Vijay Merchant, Mushtaq Ali and
Vijay Hazare attracted worldwide attention and by the end of the
1946 tour of England, the great West Indian all-rounder Learie
Constantine was predicting that “the time is not distant when
India will not only beat England on English soil but will
challenge and beat Australia, the West Indies and all
countries."Actually, that day was quite distant. Various factors on and off
the field, led to Indian cricket enduring the unendurable in the
fifties, surely the decade when the game touched its nadir in
India. The astonishing aspect was that greats like Vinoo Mankad,
Polly Umrigar, Pankaj Roy, Dattu Phadkar, Vijay Manjrekar,
Subhash Gupte and Ghulam Ahmed still graced the Indian side but
the team itself made little headway while making the headlines
for all the wrong reasons.On one unmemorable occasion at Leeds in 1952, India contrived to
lose their first four wickets without a run on the board, an
unwanted record that still stands, half a century later. A month
later at Manchester, India were bowled out for 58 and 82 in one
day, another unwanted record that stands to this day. Not very
long afterwards, at the Oval, India lost their first five wickets
with only six runs scored. In 1959, India were beaten by the West
Indies at Calcutta by an innings and 336 runs, then the second
highest losing margin in Test history.Sure, Mankad and Roy shared a first wicket partnership of 413
runs against New Zealand in 1956, a world record that still
stands as Indian cricket’s proudest statistical achievement. But
this was an exception.Recovery, however, was round the corner. The sixties marked an
upswing in the country’s cricketing fortunes thanks principally
to the leadership of Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, the key figure in
Indian cricket during the decade in more ways than one. Under his
stewardship, there was greater solidity in the batting, vast
improvement in the fielding and with the emergence of the spin
quartet, a bowling attack that terrorised batsmen the world over
in much the same manner that the fastest of bowlers did.Defeats were still suffered – seven in a row at one stage during
1967-68 – but by the end of the decade, Indian cricket seemed
poised for better things.However, not even the most optimistic Indian cricket follower
could have envisaged what was to follow. By any yardstick, the
India Rubber Year of 1971 was a watershed in the cricketing
fortunes of the country.
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The discovery of Sunil Gavaskar and the twin triumphs in West
Indies and England followed by another victory over England at
home in 1972-73, created an euphoric mood never seen before.
Throughout the decade, with Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath as
the batting kingpins and the spin quartet at the peak of their
powers, the Indian team could challenge the best, win matches
outside the country and perform feats that were straight out of
fiction like scoring 406 for four to beat the West Indies at
Port of Spain in 1976. Sure, they were aberrations like the
notorious `Summer of 42′ at Lord’s in 1974 but these were the
exceptions rather than the rule.In keeping with the momentum, could we then hope for better
things in the eighties? Why not? For, even as time finally caught
up with the spin quartet, a tall, strong lad from Haryana
appeared on the scene.Indian cricket and fast bowling seemed to be two worlds apart but
then Kapil Dev was a class apart. He became the pivotal figure of
the eighties as captain and all-rounder. The World Cup triumph in
1983, surely something out of `Boys Own’ magazine, followed by
the victory in the World Championship of Cricket in Australia two
years later meant that the popularity of the limited overs game
reached an all-time high.Batsmen like Mohinder Amarnath, Dilip Vengsarkar and Mohammad
Azharuddin proved to be worthy successors to Gavaskar and
Viswanath and the Indian flag was kept flying high symbolised by
the 1986 Test triumph in England, some reverses notwithstanding.What would the nineties bring? Sachin Tendulkar for one. Finally,
an Indian was the best batsman in the world. Indian cricket
revolved around him, on and off the field. Anil Kumble took over
the spinning mantle and emulated Jim Laker by taking all ten
wickets against Pakistan at the Kotla in 1999 while Tendulkar
could count on support from the likes of Navjot Sidhu, Sourav
Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Venkatsai Laxman.Despite the occasional setbacks, Indian cricket continued to
attract worldwide attention and in the new millennium, as a host
of newcomers make their presence felt, it is difficult not to
visualise the first decade of the 21st century as possibly the
greatest period in Indian cricket history.
