Wisden Extra is the free online magazine from Wisden. Welcome to the 12th edition of Wisden EXTRA, sponsored by Hardys wine, edited by James Coyne and focussing on the intriguing prospect of a five-Test series between England and India – the first in this country since 1959. In these Twenty20-heavy times, Wisden India Almanack editor Suresh Menon examines India’s relationship with the longest form of the game, while Rob Smyth chooses the five best non-Ashes five-Test series. Robert Winder remembers his first Test, and we launch our Wisden news section, bringing you up to date with everything you could possibly wish to know about the world of Wisden.
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 1copy John Wisden amp Company Limited 2014 Wisden is a trademark of John Wisden amp Company Limited
Given that you can bet on almost anything these days it would have been interesting to know the odds on the first Test series under N Srinivasanrsquos ICC chairmanship running to five matches (Actually on reflection letrsquos steer clear of the betting issue) But certainly until this summer many assumed that ndash barring the Ashes ndash the five-Test series was extinct Yet here we are embarking on the first since 2004-05 ndash when England clung on to win 2ndash1 in South Africa
Not so long ago five- or even six-match series between the leading Test nations were the core of the calendar Sometimes when it rained in England or someone took an early lead in the subcontinent the cricket could be dreary in the extreme But at its best a series of five still takes some beating Rob Smyth selects his favourites from the pantheon and this time England v Australia is not eligible
Had the famous West Indies ldquogrovelrdquo tour of 1976 been lopped off at four Tests there would have been no fabulous finale at The Oval where Viv Richards slammed 291 and Michael Holding produced the most beautiful fast bowling Robert Winder though was lucky enough to be there and relives his memories in My First Test
Suresh Menon the editor of Wisden India Almanack notes in our leading article that we may be in line for more encounters between the Big Three the nations that led the ICC revamp back in January Menonrsquos
WisdenEXTRAEngland v India Test series
The Big Three era starts now
Eagarrsquos Eye Patrick Eagar the doyen of cricket photographers has taken his camera to cricket for more than 45 years For much of that time his lens has been trained on the international stage but in this issue he turns his focus away from the fray and towards the spectators or the recreational cricketers And as always he casts an erudite and entertaining eye on what he sees
No 12 July 2014
most recent book was a lovely biography of Bishan Bedi ndash a stylist who played all his international cricket before Indiarsquos 1983 World Cup win and the countryrsquos wider liberalisation Since then the IPL has moved the goalposts once again Menon is in an ideal position to examine what Test cricket means to Indians across the social spectrum
The Ranji Trophy has withstood all this to remain the breeding ground for Indian Test cricketers Although it has never commanded quite the same affection as the County Championship it can still produce its fair share of romance We delve into the Wisden archives to reproduce Siddhartha Vaidyanathanrsquos account of Railwaysrsquo fairytale run to the 2004-05 title
This is the first EnglandndashIndia five-Test series for nigh on 30 years so we thought wersquod mark it with a competition courtesy of our sponsors Hardys WineWersquoll announce the winner early next year Plus for the first time wersquore running a Wisden news page Although Wisden EXTRA has allowed us to bridge the annual cycle between Almanacks and Twitter and Facebook keep our online followers informed some Wisden-related news has sometimes flown under the radar Hopefully yoursquoll discover something of interest Either way ndash gem or blooper please continue to let us know what you think about Wisden EXTRA
James Coyne
p13
151 editions of the worldrsquos most famous sports book
As England and India prepare to do battle in an intriguing series Suresh Menon examines Indiarsquos complex relationship with Test cricket
The Big Hit
Pic Timothy A Clary AFPGetty Images
Testing times despite having his jaw broken earlier in the match Anil Kumble dismissed Brian Lara at Antigua May 2002
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2
A five-day wonder
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 3
continued overleaf
In 2007 India won the inaugural World Twenty20 A year later the IPL arrived accompanied by music as funereal as it was vibrant Test cricket some believed was set to die And the villain ndash characterised by fake-scary Bollywood laugh and dollar bills thrown wantonly into the air ndash was India The IPL was seen as a game-changer fit to rank with overarm bowling It generated its own hyperbole much of it paid for by the BCCI
Yet six years on with India embarking on their first five-Test series for 12 years there is a grudging admission that rumours of Test cricketrsquos death were perhaps exaggerated India havenrsquot played a five-Test series in England since 1959 and while the calibre of their players has undoubtedly improved over 55 years the length of the current series is thanks not so much to the quality of the national team as to the board
The idea of a five-Test series ndash the most financially beneficial arrangement for the hosts ndash was mooted by ECB chairman Giles Clarke and agreed by N Srinivasan the (currently suspended) president of the BCCI ldquoSrini felt that we ought to return to the days of the old-fashioned five-match seriesrdquo said an Indian official And if Srini hadnrsquot felt so itrsquos highly unlikely it would have happened Despite accusations that he has brought the game into disrepute and with epithets such as ldquonauseatingrdquo being used by the Supreme Court of India to describe him Srinivasan is nevertheless due some thanks from the cricketing world
In recent years the game has contributed to the mangling of the English language by its insistence that a two-Test encounter constitutes a ldquoseriesrdquo India have played eight such ldquoseriesrdquo ndash including their last three ndash since May 2008 Yet in that period they have played 60 Tests fewer admittedly than England (77) or Australia (74) but more than the others And their 42 Twenty20 internationals are significantly fewer than those played by England (60) Australia (59) and South Africa (57) (Pakistan incidentally have played 72 T20Is) A high-profile domestic tournament played in April and May might have something to do with this
Two-Test ldquoseriesrdquo can discourage even the best from taking chances (oddly a one-off Test is preferable since teams can throw everything into it) Take Indiarsquos recent tour of South Africa for example in the First Test the hosts pulled down the shutters with 16 needed from 19 balls and with three wickets in hand This negativity was encouraged by Indiarsquos tactic of bowling well outside off stump to quell any last-minute bravado The two just-concluded EnglandndashSri Lanka Tests kept people on the edge of their seats but that exception aside itrsquos often a case ndash as George Orwell almost said ndash of ldquoTwo matches bad five matches goodrdquo
But there is promising news It is proposed that future IndiandashEngland and IndiandashAustralia series will be five-Test affairs (after the pre-World Cup series in Australia which will be four) And all lovers of Test cricket must welcome that arrangement
It is one thing for older cricket buffs ndash such as those who had the pleasure of seeing Colin
Cowdrey or Tiger Pataudi bat ndash to get excited over the development that the Big Three are keen to play five-Test series against each other But what if the fans arenrsquot equally enthused The crucial ones in this context are of course the Indian supporters those who watch television and attract lucrative advertising deals International cricket ndash even Srinivasan himself though he might not acknowledge it ndash survives on their patronage World Cups in both 50- and 20-over format have been successful because they are bankrolled by companies selling products to a largely Indian middle class Cricket stopped being a game played over 22 yards long ago the real pitch now is the television screen ndash or the smaller one on the phone
A recent BangladeshndashIndia one-day series almost went ahead without any live coverage the $US1m offered by the Star network to Gazi TV the rights holders was apparently deemed too low As it turned out a last-minute deal was struck and the matches were telecast but it was a pointer to what could happen if interest waned An India series isnrsquot automatically the hottest buy for television Not for Indians anyway The lack of interest was partly due to the absence of the big names from the Indian side and partly to the country-wide interest in a different World Cup being played in front of vast audiences in Brazil
Thanks to the live broadcast of English and European leagues in India viewership for football has been increasing According to one estimate while cricket drew 209m viewers in 2013 football was not far behind with 155m The 2014 IPL generated a viewership of 185m Sony Six the official broadcasters of the football World Cup suggest the viewership for this event will be upwards of 100m
Key to understanding all this is the youth of the Indian population Nearly 65 of Indians are under 35 born no more than a decade before Sachin Tendulkar made his international debut It is dangerous to jump to conclusions about what younger people like ndash my 75-year-old mother is a diehard IPL fan while my 25-year-old son is a Test match nut ndash but marketing managers are most comfortable dealing in clicheacutes That is the safe way to do it the greatest good for the greatest number The alternative the greatest good for the game is not a priority
In November last year when Tendulkar retired 17m tuned in to watch his final Test Compare that with the 133m (cumulative) audience for the World T20 Where the shorter formats score is in their more aggressive marketing the guarantee of a result and in the unambiguous nature of black or white A six is ldquogreatrdquo regardless of whether it was struck off the meat of the bat or a flailing edge Test cricketrsquos conceit is perhaps that it is better to play correctly than to make runs or take wickets through ugly means though few play to that tune so much these days
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series4
The greater subtlety the more nuanced battles between ball and bat the fact that the Tests are individually discrete yet constitute a complete entity whose intricacy becomes clear only in retrospect ndash all add up to make Test cricket a feast for the soul And it is a feast that can be enjoyed by the delivery the stroke the over the session the day the match even the series whose ebb and flow spread over a month or more It is an intellectual exercise with every incident a part of a larger whole a piece of a huge jigsaw that reveals itself sometimes only years later The continuing interest in the Bodyline series (and the publication of books eight decades after the event) is a good example
Yet if it is the here-and-now of the shorter game that is more attractive to fans then Test cricket will
have to sell itself better The IPL for all its faults has had some beneficial effects on the five-day game ldquoThere are more decisions to be made nowrdquo says former India captain Anil Kumble who in an 18-year career played in only one full five-Test series against West Indies in 1996-97 ldquoTeams are no longer comfortable about declaring early They know that at a pinch a team can get 200 runs in 20ndash25 oversrdquo
How India fare in England over the next few weeks might shape the future of the five-Test series at least for them As many have pointed out Indians are not great fans of cricket so much as great fans of cricketers And in that slightly skewed perspective might lie the fortunes of Test cricket If the team win and the heroes shine then there will be great interest The Kohlis and Pujaras have done well in South
Two and a half hours before the start of play and MCC members snake round the perimeter of Lordrsquos to claim their favourite seat If yoursquore familiar with the ground yoursquoll know theyrsquore queueing as far as the North Gate and have well over a quarter of a mile before they can get in via the Grace Gate Members donrsquot have an allocated seat and the really eager ones reach the ground before itrsquos properly light The same used to apply to photographers and Irsquod often pitch up at around seven in the morning to ensure I got the right position near the boundary rope Itrsquos all changed now with the big international agencies having first choice This was the third day of the 2009 Ashes Test which England won by 115 runs
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 5
Eagarrsquos Eye
Africa and New Zealand and have already replaced Tendulkar and Dravid in the collective consciousness
Yet what would be the ideal scoreline The seemingly best result 5ndash0 to India might actually turn the T20 generation off despite any talk of ldquorevengerdquo for the 4ndash0 clean sweep in 2011 Perhaps the perfect outcome would be a 3ndash2 win for India though both scenarios assume that the British weather also enjoys a decent run of form
Indiarsquos last five-Test series was in the West Indies 12 years ago No Indian survives from that tour (Shivnarine Chanderpaul the Keith Richards of cricket had already racked up more than 50 Tests for the hosts however and a young Chris Gayle was finding his feet) England may prove a good start for the new-look team though the route back to the No 1
spot might well be made easier by playing more Tests at home than abroad
Their fans meanwhile are blessed with the kind of short memory that hastens forgiveness bad tours (such as the disasters in England and Australia starting in 2011) are easily forgotten by a good showing at home even against lesser teams A five-Test series is a novelty for the majority of Indian fans
India are roughly in the position Australia were in back in 1977-78 when they had lost their stars to Kerry Packerrsquos series and hosted a full-strength India That series ended 3ndash2 to Australia and helped reconnect their fans to traditional cricket Now is a good time for history to do what it is good at repeat itself
Suresh Menon is editor of Wisden India Almanack
1
6
Ah Arundel Like Wormsley itrsquos an amazing ground created by a fabulously wealthy man driven to achieve an ambitious design Here in Sussex the dream was dreamed by the Duke of Norfolk ndash why donrsquot aristocrats ever choose to live in the county whose name they bear ndash at the end of the 19th century and over the years the castle ground has seen some magnificent cricket The teams here have just contested the 2013 National Schools Twenty20 final and if you think you can see more of a spring in the step of the lads in yellow yoursquore right Shrewsbury have just beaten Bedersquos
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 2
WisdenEXTRA England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 7
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series8
For ten years the Ashes stood as the last redoubt of the five-Test series But before the boards were seduced by cricket in pyjamas there were countless classics from outside the EnglandndashAustralia duopoly Rob Smyth chooses five of the best
This summer Test cricketrsquos disciples have an unexpected reward the BCCI of all bodies have agreed for India to play their first five-Test series since 2001-02 (That West Indies won 2ndash1 tells you it was a long time ago) If Test cricket is the ultimate sporting format ndash and a vaguely persuasively case to the contrary has yet to be presented ndash then a five-Test series must be the ultimate ultimate Itrsquos not just bowlers who have a natural length pop songs are right at three minutes and films at 90 while a Test series ndash it just has to be five
Itrsquos like a fusion of the best of cinema and television Five feature-length episodes which tell wonderfully engaging stories in isolation yet which are also interwoven to reveal twists subplots rivalries and character arcs with each episode more dramatic and significant than the last It defines careers ndash lives even ndash and inspires men to do things of which they did not know themselves capable
Australia 2 West Indies 1 1960-61ldquoNeverrdquo said Wisden ldquohas it been more apparent that the game is greater than the resultrdquo This was a series bathed in goodwill from the moment the captains Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud decided to buckle their swash The five matches gave the kiss of life to Test cricket after a dull end to the 1950s ndash and the kiss of hope that sustained the romantic through an even duller 1960s
The Tied Test as close to perfection as a cricket match will ever be overshadows all But there is so much more to recall two swaggering hundreds apiece from Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai a hat-trick from Lance Gibbs and particularly the superheroism of Alan Davidson who took 33 wickets and scored 212 runs in just four Tests
There were other heart-stopping finishes as well Australiarsquos last pair of Slasher Mackay and Lindsay Kline held on for nearly two hours in the Fourth Test at Adelaide and Australia sneaked over the line by two wickets in the decider at Melbourne
After a phenomenal series ndash one that made a drum-and-bass track of even the most relaxed ticker ndash came a ticker-tape farewell with over 100000 Australians saying goodbye to the West Indians Truly the game was the thing For once it was not trite to say there were no real losers It started with a Tied Test and in a sense ended with a tied series
West Indies 2 Pakistan 1 1976-77This might be Test cricketrsquos best-kept secret The stories of two West Indies series in the mid-1970s ndash away to Australia and England ndash are regularly taught on the cricket history curriculum yet this Pakistan encounter remains largely untold All that most people know are the more memorable details such as Colin Croftrsquos eight for 29 or West Indies conceding a then-record 68 Extras in an innings
West Indiesrsquo eventual victory was significant in their rise to world domination as it cemented their belief in the tyranny of fast bowling They found the last two parts of their first great pace quartet with Croft and Joel Garner sharing 58 wickets in their debut series Pakistanrsquos star was Wasim Raja a fearless counter-attacker who walloped 14 sixes still unsurpassed in any Test series
The First Test see-sawed violently and ultimately came down to the last-wicket pairs Pakistanrsquos added 133 in the second innings aided by many of those record-breaking Extras before West Indiesrsquo held
The magic number
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 9
on grimly for a draw Croft brutalised Pakistan to win the Second The tourists overcame a huge first-innings deficit to draw the Third and won the Fourth at a canter after one of the great all-round captainrsquos performances from Mushtaq Mohammad who went into the game in dreadful form but scored a century and took eight wickets
The momentum was seemingly with Pakistan but West Indies ignored that to win the deciding Test comfortably with Gordon Greenidge scoring 100 and 82 A formidable team were coming together and it would be more than a decade before they were properly tested on their own patch ndash again by Pakistan the one team who consistently stood up to them during their world domination
England 1 Pakistan 2 1992Reverse-swingrsquos greatest summer was shiny on one side thanks to the blinding brilliance of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and seriously abrasive on the other The enmity between England and Pakistan has never been greater Wisden said it was ldquoas eventful as any tour of England there has beenrdquo When the Pakistanis returned in 1996 ldquono tour ndash save perhaps the Australiansrsquo first after Bodyline ndash can have needed more delicate handlingrdquo The prequel of the 1992 World Cup final sparked a mutual mistrust adding enormously to a contest already a compelling study in contrasts Englandrsquos honest endeavour against Pakistanrsquos naked talent
Opposites infract England thought Pakistan were ball-tampering Pakistan thought Englandrsquos umpires were cheating Aqib Javed got shirty over a jumper at Old Trafford And when Graham Gooch was appallingly reprieved despite being clearly run out at Headingley the offending image reportedly appeared on buses in Pakistan
A limited England aided by a horse called Mallender did well to hang in the series for so long but it was right and proper that Pakistan should win Stumps toes and front pads will never be under as much threat as they were that summer Wasim and Waqarrsquos new-fangled old-ball threat was like nothing anyone had seen
The pair were Kryptonite when the ball was reversing not only for tailenders but also middle-order batsmen new to the crease In five different collapses across the series England lost 31 wickets for 133 runs Some of the batsmen cried foul Thankfully the abiding memory of the summer is of the shiny side the unprecedented genius of two men who made sure the old ball would not shut up
Australia 1 West Indies 2 1992-93One of the joys of success is that once-painful memories become warmly remembered rites of passage This series so traumatic at the time for Australia can now be viewed as an essential part of their rise to greatness By 1994-95 when they dethroned West Indies they were too good so this is the closest Test cricket has come to a contest between two all-time great sides Australia were
not quite there and West Indies were on the way down they met in the middle with immense results
There were famous moments from future giants Brian Lararsquos 277 one of the great maiden centuries turned a bore draw into a cherished memory while Shane Warnersquos flipper of the century to Richie Richardson was a big moment in his career part one of a match-winning seven-for on his home ground
The prospect of West Indies losing a series for the first time in 13 years did not impress Curtly Ambrose Few men have ever raged with such furious pride against the potential dying of a light At Adelaide he took ten wickets in one of the most amazing chapters in Test cricket Australiarsquos tailenders took them to the brink of a series win before Craig McDermott was given out to Courtney Walsh Australia had to adjust to the most alien troubling of concepts glorious failure and on Australia Day too
The deciding Test at Perth was over almost before it started Ambrose spread-eagled Australia with an outrageous spell of seven for one West Indies retained their unofficial world title and Australia were left to wonder if they would ever know such riches
England 2 South Africa 1 1998This was cricket as noir rugged hard-boiled and with a devastating twist when South Africa the unwitting patsies ended up losing a series they might conceivably have won 4ndash0 The contest meant an abnormal amount to both sides England wanted their first win in a five-Test series for nearly 12 years South Africa their first series win in England for 33
South Africa were a borderline lbw decision away from going 2ndash0 up ndash ldquoThatrsquoll dordquo thought Allan Donald as the ball thudded into Angus Fraserrsquos pad ndash and then lost the last two Tests The first of those at Trent Bridge was famous for the duel between Mike Atherton and Donald ndash a window into the soul of two outstanding competitors and authentic tough guys There was an unspoken agreement that the match and probably the series would be decided by that clash ldquoDonaldrdquo said Wisden ldquohurled himself at Atherton like a man who had taken 24 wickets in the series and had just worked out that he could still finish on the losing siderdquo ndash and both went to places they had never been before
If Atherton was justly the star his old mate Fraser deserved enormous credit he took 18 wickets in the two England victories That included eight in the final Test a low-scoring dogfight at Headingley It was an unturnoffable mishmash of collapses over-my-dead-body defiance downright nastiness and umpiring howlers primarily from Javed Akhtar Indeed the whole series might be used to convert DRS sceptics Then again perhaps not had DRS been in place we would not have had Atherton v Donald the thing above all else that elevated this series
Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series10
Three years ago Hampshirersquos Rose Bowl staged its first Test and the weather ruined the party Britain of course is full of stiff upper lips and they donrsquot come much stiffer than this stoic couple resolutely staying put while all around have fled At least I think theyrsquore under there somewhere The blue and yellow plus the geometric pattern of modern seating make this rather pleasing ndash more so than the game which dribbled away to a dreich draw
Eagarrsquos Eye 3
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
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lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
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WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
As England and India prepare to do battle in an intriguing series Suresh Menon examines Indiarsquos complex relationship with Test cricket
The Big Hit
Pic Timothy A Clary AFPGetty Images
Testing times despite having his jaw broken earlier in the match Anil Kumble dismissed Brian Lara at Antigua May 2002
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2
A five-day wonder
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 3
continued overleaf
In 2007 India won the inaugural World Twenty20 A year later the IPL arrived accompanied by music as funereal as it was vibrant Test cricket some believed was set to die And the villain ndash characterised by fake-scary Bollywood laugh and dollar bills thrown wantonly into the air ndash was India The IPL was seen as a game-changer fit to rank with overarm bowling It generated its own hyperbole much of it paid for by the BCCI
Yet six years on with India embarking on their first five-Test series for 12 years there is a grudging admission that rumours of Test cricketrsquos death were perhaps exaggerated India havenrsquot played a five-Test series in England since 1959 and while the calibre of their players has undoubtedly improved over 55 years the length of the current series is thanks not so much to the quality of the national team as to the board
The idea of a five-Test series ndash the most financially beneficial arrangement for the hosts ndash was mooted by ECB chairman Giles Clarke and agreed by N Srinivasan the (currently suspended) president of the BCCI ldquoSrini felt that we ought to return to the days of the old-fashioned five-match seriesrdquo said an Indian official And if Srini hadnrsquot felt so itrsquos highly unlikely it would have happened Despite accusations that he has brought the game into disrepute and with epithets such as ldquonauseatingrdquo being used by the Supreme Court of India to describe him Srinivasan is nevertheless due some thanks from the cricketing world
In recent years the game has contributed to the mangling of the English language by its insistence that a two-Test encounter constitutes a ldquoseriesrdquo India have played eight such ldquoseriesrdquo ndash including their last three ndash since May 2008 Yet in that period they have played 60 Tests fewer admittedly than England (77) or Australia (74) but more than the others And their 42 Twenty20 internationals are significantly fewer than those played by England (60) Australia (59) and South Africa (57) (Pakistan incidentally have played 72 T20Is) A high-profile domestic tournament played in April and May might have something to do with this
Two-Test ldquoseriesrdquo can discourage even the best from taking chances (oddly a one-off Test is preferable since teams can throw everything into it) Take Indiarsquos recent tour of South Africa for example in the First Test the hosts pulled down the shutters with 16 needed from 19 balls and with three wickets in hand This negativity was encouraged by Indiarsquos tactic of bowling well outside off stump to quell any last-minute bravado The two just-concluded EnglandndashSri Lanka Tests kept people on the edge of their seats but that exception aside itrsquos often a case ndash as George Orwell almost said ndash of ldquoTwo matches bad five matches goodrdquo
But there is promising news It is proposed that future IndiandashEngland and IndiandashAustralia series will be five-Test affairs (after the pre-World Cup series in Australia which will be four) And all lovers of Test cricket must welcome that arrangement
It is one thing for older cricket buffs ndash such as those who had the pleasure of seeing Colin
Cowdrey or Tiger Pataudi bat ndash to get excited over the development that the Big Three are keen to play five-Test series against each other But what if the fans arenrsquot equally enthused The crucial ones in this context are of course the Indian supporters those who watch television and attract lucrative advertising deals International cricket ndash even Srinivasan himself though he might not acknowledge it ndash survives on their patronage World Cups in both 50- and 20-over format have been successful because they are bankrolled by companies selling products to a largely Indian middle class Cricket stopped being a game played over 22 yards long ago the real pitch now is the television screen ndash or the smaller one on the phone
A recent BangladeshndashIndia one-day series almost went ahead without any live coverage the $US1m offered by the Star network to Gazi TV the rights holders was apparently deemed too low As it turned out a last-minute deal was struck and the matches were telecast but it was a pointer to what could happen if interest waned An India series isnrsquot automatically the hottest buy for television Not for Indians anyway The lack of interest was partly due to the absence of the big names from the Indian side and partly to the country-wide interest in a different World Cup being played in front of vast audiences in Brazil
Thanks to the live broadcast of English and European leagues in India viewership for football has been increasing According to one estimate while cricket drew 209m viewers in 2013 football was not far behind with 155m The 2014 IPL generated a viewership of 185m Sony Six the official broadcasters of the football World Cup suggest the viewership for this event will be upwards of 100m
Key to understanding all this is the youth of the Indian population Nearly 65 of Indians are under 35 born no more than a decade before Sachin Tendulkar made his international debut It is dangerous to jump to conclusions about what younger people like ndash my 75-year-old mother is a diehard IPL fan while my 25-year-old son is a Test match nut ndash but marketing managers are most comfortable dealing in clicheacutes That is the safe way to do it the greatest good for the greatest number The alternative the greatest good for the game is not a priority
In November last year when Tendulkar retired 17m tuned in to watch his final Test Compare that with the 133m (cumulative) audience for the World T20 Where the shorter formats score is in their more aggressive marketing the guarantee of a result and in the unambiguous nature of black or white A six is ldquogreatrdquo regardless of whether it was struck off the meat of the bat or a flailing edge Test cricketrsquos conceit is perhaps that it is better to play correctly than to make runs or take wickets through ugly means though few play to that tune so much these days
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series4
The greater subtlety the more nuanced battles between ball and bat the fact that the Tests are individually discrete yet constitute a complete entity whose intricacy becomes clear only in retrospect ndash all add up to make Test cricket a feast for the soul And it is a feast that can be enjoyed by the delivery the stroke the over the session the day the match even the series whose ebb and flow spread over a month or more It is an intellectual exercise with every incident a part of a larger whole a piece of a huge jigsaw that reveals itself sometimes only years later The continuing interest in the Bodyline series (and the publication of books eight decades after the event) is a good example
Yet if it is the here-and-now of the shorter game that is more attractive to fans then Test cricket will
have to sell itself better The IPL for all its faults has had some beneficial effects on the five-day game ldquoThere are more decisions to be made nowrdquo says former India captain Anil Kumble who in an 18-year career played in only one full five-Test series against West Indies in 1996-97 ldquoTeams are no longer comfortable about declaring early They know that at a pinch a team can get 200 runs in 20ndash25 oversrdquo
How India fare in England over the next few weeks might shape the future of the five-Test series at least for them As many have pointed out Indians are not great fans of cricket so much as great fans of cricketers And in that slightly skewed perspective might lie the fortunes of Test cricket If the team win and the heroes shine then there will be great interest The Kohlis and Pujaras have done well in South
Two and a half hours before the start of play and MCC members snake round the perimeter of Lordrsquos to claim their favourite seat If yoursquore familiar with the ground yoursquoll know theyrsquore queueing as far as the North Gate and have well over a quarter of a mile before they can get in via the Grace Gate Members donrsquot have an allocated seat and the really eager ones reach the ground before itrsquos properly light The same used to apply to photographers and Irsquod often pitch up at around seven in the morning to ensure I got the right position near the boundary rope Itrsquos all changed now with the big international agencies having first choice This was the third day of the 2009 Ashes Test which England won by 115 runs
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 5
Eagarrsquos Eye
Africa and New Zealand and have already replaced Tendulkar and Dravid in the collective consciousness
Yet what would be the ideal scoreline The seemingly best result 5ndash0 to India might actually turn the T20 generation off despite any talk of ldquorevengerdquo for the 4ndash0 clean sweep in 2011 Perhaps the perfect outcome would be a 3ndash2 win for India though both scenarios assume that the British weather also enjoys a decent run of form
Indiarsquos last five-Test series was in the West Indies 12 years ago No Indian survives from that tour (Shivnarine Chanderpaul the Keith Richards of cricket had already racked up more than 50 Tests for the hosts however and a young Chris Gayle was finding his feet) England may prove a good start for the new-look team though the route back to the No 1
spot might well be made easier by playing more Tests at home than abroad
Their fans meanwhile are blessed with the kind of short memory that hastens forgiveness bad tours (such as the disasters in England and Australia starting in 2011) are easily forgotten by a good showing at home even against lesser teams A five-Test series is a novelty for the majority of Indian fans
India are roughly in the position Australia were in back in 1977-78 when they had lost their stars to Kerry Packerrsquos series and hosted a full-strength India That series ended 3ndash2 to Australia and helped reconnect their fans to traditional cricket Now is a good time for history to do what it is good at repeat itself
Suresh Menon is editor of Wisden India Almanack
1
6
Ah Arundel Like Wormsley itrsquos an amazing ground created by a fabulously wealthy man driven to achieve an ambitious design Here in Sussex the dream was dreamed by the Duke of Norfolk ndash why donrsquot aristocrats ever choose to live in the county whose name they bear ndash at the end of the 19th century and over the years the castle ground has seen some magnificent cricket The teams here have just contested the 2013 National Schools Twenty20 final and if you think you can see more of a spring in the step of the lads in yellow yoursquore right Shrewsbury have just beaten Bedersquos
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 2
WisdenEXTRA England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 7
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series8
For ten years the Ashes stood as the last redoubt of the five-Test series But before the boards were seduced by cricket in pyjamas there were countless classics from outside the EnglandndashAustralia duopoly Rob Smyth chooses five of the best
This summer Test cricketrsquos disciples have an unexpected reward the BCCI of all bodies have agreed for India to play their first five-Test series since 2001-02 (That West Indies won 2ndash1 tells you it was a long time ago) If Test cricket is the ultimate sporting format ndash and a vaguely persuasively case to the contrary has yet to be presented ndash then a five-Test series must be the ultimate ultimate Itrsquos not just bowlers who have a natural length pop songs are right at three minutes and films at 90 while a Test series ndash it just has to be five
Itrsquos like a fusion of the best of cinema and television Five feature-length episodes which tell wonderfully engaging stories in isolation yet which are also interwoven to reveal twists subplots rivalries and character arcs with each episode more dramatic and significant than the last It defines careers ndash lives even ndash and inspires men to do things of which they did not know themselves capable
Australia 2 West Indies 1 1960-61ldquoNeverrdquo said Wisden ldquohas it been more apparent that the game is greater than the resultrdquo This was a series bathed in goodwill from the moment the captains Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud decided to buckle their swash The five matches gave the kiss of life to Test cricket after a dull end to the 1950s ndash and the kiss of hope that sustained the romantic through an even duller 1960s
The Tied Test as close to perfection as a cricket match will ever be overshadows all But there is so much more to recall two swaggering hundreds apiece from Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai a hat-trick from Lance Gibbs and particularly the superheroism of Alan Davidson who took 33 wickets and scored 212 runs in just four Tests
There were other heart-stopping finishes as well Australiarsquos last pair of Slasher Mackay and Lindsay Kline held on for nearly two hours in the Fourth Test at Adelaide and Australia sneaked over the line by two wickets in the decider at Melbourne
After a phenomenal series ndash one that made a drum-and-bass track of even the most relaxed ticker ndash came a ticker-tape farewell with over 100000 Australians saying goodbye to the West Indians Truly the game was the thing For once it was not trite to say there were no real losers It started with a Tied Test and in a sense ended with a tied series
West Indies 2 Pakistan 1 1976-77This might be Test cricketrsquos best-kept secret The stories of two West Indies series in the mid-1970s ndash away to Australia and England ndash are regularly taught on the cricket history curriculum yet this Pakistan encounter remains largely untold All that most people know are the more memorable details such as Colin Croftrsquos eight for 29 or West Indies conceding a then-record 68 Extras in an innings
West Indiesrsquo eventual victory was significant in their rise to world domination as it cemented their belief in the tyranny of fast bowling They found the last two parts of their first great pace quartet with Croft and Joel Garner sharing 58 wickets in their debut series Pakistanrsquos star was Wasim Raja a fearless counter-attacker who walloped 14 sixes still unsurpassed in any Test series
The First Test see-sawed violently and ultimately came down to the last-wicket pairs Pakistanrsquos added 133 in the second innings aided by many of those record-breaking Extras before West Indiesrsquo held
The magic number
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 9
on grimly for a draw Croft brutalised Pakistan to win the Second The tourists overcame a huge first-innings deficit to draw the Third and won the Fourth at a canter after one of the great all-round captainrsquos performances from Mushtaq Mohammad who went into the game in dreadful form but scored a century and took eight wickets
The momentum was seemingly with Pakistan but West Indies ignored that to win the deciding Test comfortably with Gordon Greenidge scoring 100 and 82 A formidable team were coming together and it would be more than a decade before they were properly tested on their own patch ndash again by Pakistan the one team who consistently stood up to them during their world domination
England 1 Pakistan 2 1992Reverse-swingrsquos greatest summer was shiny on one side thanks to the blinding brilliance of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and seriously abrasive on the other The enmity between England and Pakistan has never been greater Wisden said it was ldquoas eventful as any tour of England there has beenrdquo When the Pakistanis returned in 1996 ldquono tour ndash save perhaps the Australiansrsquo first after Bodyline ndash can have needed more delicate handlingrdquo The prequel of the 1992 World Cup final sparked a mutual mistrust adding enormously to a contest already a compelling study in contrasts Englandrsquos honest endeavour against Pakistanrsquos naked talent
Opposites infract England thought Pakistan were ball-tampering Pakistan thought Englandrsquos umpires were cheating Aqib Javed got shirty over a jumper at Old Trafford And when Graham Gooch was appallingly reprieved despite being clearly run out at Headingley the offending image reportedly appeared on buses in Pakistan
A limited England aided by a horse called Mallender did well to hang in the series for so long but it was right and proper that Pakistan should win Stumps toes and front pads will never be under as much threat as they were that summer Wasim and Waqarrsquos new-fangled old-ball threat was like nothing anyone had seen
The pair were Kryptonite when the ball was reversing not only for tailenders but also middle-order batsmen new to the crease In five different collapses across the series England lost 31 wickets for 133 runs Some of the batsmen cried foul Thankfully the abiding memory of the summer is of the shiny side the unprecedented genius of two men who made sure the old ball would not shut up
Australia 1 West Indies 2 1992-93One of the joys of success is that once-painful memories become warmly remembered rites of passage This series so traumatic at the time for Australia can now be viewed as an essential part of their rise to greatness By 1994-95 when they dethroned West Indies they were too good so this is the closest Test cricket has come to a contest between two all-time great sides Australia were
not quite there and West Indies were on the way down they met in the middle with immense results
There were famous moments from future giants Brian Lararsquos 277 one of the great maiden centuries turned a bore draw into a cherished memory while Shane Warnersquos flipper of the century to Richie Richardson was a big moment in his career part one of a match-winning seven-for on his home ground
The prospect of West Indies losing a series for the first time in 13 years did not impress Curtly Ambrose Few men have ever raged with such furious pride against the potential dying of a light At Adelaide he took ten wickets in one of the most amazing chapters in Test cricket Australiarsquos tailenders took them to the brink of a series win before Craig McDermott was given out to Courtney Walsh Australia had to adjust to the most alien troubling of concepts glorious failure and on Australia Day too
The deciding Test at Perth was over almost before it started Ambrose spread-eagled Australia with an outrageous spell of seven for one West Indies retained their unofficial world title and Australia were left to wonder if they would ever know such riches
England 2 South Africa 1 1998This was cricket as noir rugged hard-boiled and with a devastating twist when South Africa the unwitting patsies ended up losing a series they might conceivably have won 4ndash0 The contest meant an abnormal amount to both sides England wanted their first win in a five-Test series for nearly 12 years South Africa their first series win in England for 33
South Africa were a borderline lbw decision away from going 2ndash0 up ndash ldquoThatrsquoll dordquo thought Allan Donald as the ball thudded into Angus Fraserrsquos pad ndash and then lost the last two Tests The first of those at Trent Bridge was famous for the duel between Mike Atherton and Donald ndash a window into the soul of two outstanding competitors and authentic tough guys There was an unspoken agreement that the match and probably the series would be decided by that clash ldquoDonaldrdquo said Wisden ldquohurled himself at Atherton like a man who had taken 24 wickets in the series and had just worked out that he could still finish on the losing siderdquo ndash and both went to places they had never been before
If Atherton was justly the star his old mate Fraser deserved enormous credit he took 18 wickets in the two England victories That included eight in the final Test a low-scoring dogfight at Headingley It was an unturnoffable mishmash of collapses over-my-dead-body defiance downright nastiness and umpiring howlers primarily from Javed Akhtar Indeed the whole series might be used to convert DRS sceptics Then again perhaps not had DRS been in place we would not have had Atherton v Donald the thing above all else that elevated this series
Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series10
Three years ago Hampshirersquos Rose Bowl staged its first Test and the weather ruined the party Britain of course is full of stiff upper lips and they donrsquot come much stiffer than this stoic couple resolutely staying put while all around have fled At least I think theyrsquore under there somewhere The blue and yellow plus the geometric pattern of modern seating make this rather pleasing ndash more so than the game which dribbled away to a dreich draw
Eagarrsquos Eye 3
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
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lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
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WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 3
continued overleaf
In 2007 India won the inaugural World Twenty20 A year later the IPL arrived accompanied by music as funereal as it was vibrant Test cricket some believed was set to die And the villain ndash characterised by fake-scary Bollywood laugh and dollar bills thrown wantonly into the air ndash was India The IPL was seen as a game-changer fit to rank with overarm bowling It generated its own hyperbole much of it paid for by the BCCI
Yet six years on with India embarking on their first five-Test series for 12 years there is a grudging admission that rumours of Test cricketrsquos death were perhaps exaggerated India havenrsquot played a five-Test series in England since 1959 and while the calibre of their players has undoubtedly improved over 55 years the length of the current series is thanks not so much to the quality of the national team as to the board
The idea of a five-Test series ndash the most financially beneficial arrangement for the hosts ndash was mooted by ECB chairman Giles Clarke and agreed by N Srinivasan the (currently suspended) president of the BCCI ldquoSrini felt that we ought to return to the days of the old-fashioned five-match seriesrdquo said an Indian official And if Srini hadnrsquot felt so itrsquos highly unlikely it would have happened Despite accusations that he has brought the game into disrepute and with epithets such as ldquonauseatingrdquo being used by the Supreme Court of India to describe him Srinivasan is nevertheless due some thanks from the cricketing world
In recent years the game has contributed to the mangling of the English language by its insistence that a two-Test encounter constitutes a ldquoseriesrdquo India have played eight such ldquoseriesrdquo ndash including their last three ndash since May 2008 Yet in that period they have played 60 Tests fewer admittedly than England (77) or Australia (74) but more than the others And their 42 Twenty20 internationals are significantly fewer than those played by England (60) Australia (59) and South Africa (57) (Pakistan incidentally have played 72 T20Is) A high-profile domestic tournament played in April and May might have something to do with this
Two-Test ldquoseriesrdquo can discourage even the best from taking chances (oddly a one-off Test is preferable since teams can throw everything into it) Take Indiarsquos recent tour of South Africa for example in the First Test the hosts pulled down the shutters with 16 needed from 19 balls and with three wickets in hand This negativity was encouraged by Indiarsquos tactic of bowling well outside off stump to quell any last-minute bravado The two just-concluded EnglandndashSri Lanka Tests kept people on the edge of their seats but that exception aside itrsquos often a case ndash as George Orwell almost said ndash of ldquoTwo matches bad five matches goodrdquo
But there is promising news It is proposed that future IndiandashEngland and IndiandashAustralia series will be five-Test affairs (after the pre-World Cup series in Australia which will be four) And all lovers of Test cricket must welcome that arrangement
It is one thing for older cricket buffs ndash such as those who had the pleasure of seeing Colin
Cowdrey or Tiger Pataudi bat ndash to get excited over the development that the Big Three are keen to play five-Test series against each other But what if the fans arenrsquot equally enthused The crucial ones in this context are of course the Indian supporters those who watch television and attract lucrative advertising deals International cricket ndash even Srinivasan himself though he might not acknowledge it ndash survives on their patronage World Cups in both 50- and 20-over format have been successful because they are bankrolled by companies selling products to a largely Indian middle class Cricket stopped being a game played over 22 yards long ago the real pitch now is the television screen ndash or the smaller one on the phone
A recent BangladeshndashIndia one-day series almost went ahead without any live coverage the $US1m offered by the Star network to Gazi TV the rights holders was apparently deemed too low As it turned out a last-minute deal was struck and the matches were telecast but it was a pointer to what could happen if interest waned An India series isnrsquot automatically the hottest buy for television Not for Indians anyway The lack of interest was partly due to the absence of the big names from the Indian side and partly to the country-wide interest in a different World Cup being played in front of vast audiences in Brazil
Thanks to the live broadcast of English and European leagues in India viewership for football has been increasing According to one estimate while cricket drew 209m viewers in 2013 football was not far behind with 155m The 2014 IPL generated a viewership of 185m Sony Six the official broadcasters of the football World Cup suggest the viewership for this event will be upwards of 100m
Key to understanding all this is the youth of the Indian population Nearly 65 of Indians are under 35 born no more than a decade before Sachin Tendulkar made his international debut It is dangerous to jump to conclusions about what younger people like ndash my 75-year-old mother is a diehard IPL fan while my 25-year-old son is a Test match nut ndash but marketing managers are most comfortable dealing in clicheacutes That is the safe way to do it the greatest good for the greatest number The alternative the greatest good for the game is not a priority
In November last year when Tendulkar retired 17m tuned in to watch his final Test Compare that with the 133m (cumulative) audience for the World T20 Where the shorter formats score is in their more aggressive marketing the guarantee of a result and in the unambiguous nature of black or white A six is ldquogreatrdquo regardless of whether it was struck off the meat of the bat or a flailing edge Test cricketrsquos conceit is perhaps that it is better to play correctly than to make runs or take wickets through ugly means though few play to that tune so much these days
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series4
The greater subtlety the more nuanced battles between ball and bat the fact that the Tests are individually discrete yet constitute a complete entity whose intricacy becomes clear only in retrospect ndash all add up to make Test cricket a feast for the soul And it is a feast that can be enjoyed by the delivery the stroke the over the session the day the match even the series whose ebb and flow spread over a month or more It is an intellectual exercise with every incident a part of a larger whole a piece of a huge jigsaw that reveals itself sometimes only years later The continuing interest in the Bodyline series (and the publication of books eight decades after the event) is a good example
Yet if it is the here-and-now of the shorter game that is more attractive to fans then Test cricket will
have to sell itself better The IPL for all its faults has had some beneficial effects on the five-day game ldquoThere are more decisions to be made nowrdquo says former India captain Anil Kumble who in an 18-year career played in only one full five-Test series against West Indies in 1996-97 ldquoTeams are no longer comfortable about declaring early They know that at a pinch a team can get 200 runs in 20ndash25 oversrdquo
How India fare in England over the next few weeks might shape the future of the five-Test series at least for them As many have pointed out Indians are not great fans of cricket so much as great fans of cricketers And in that slightly skewed perspective might lie the fortunes of Test cricket If the team win and the heroes shine then there will be great interest The Kohlis and Pujaras have done well in South
Two and a half hours before the start of play and MCC members snake round the perimeter of Lordrsquos to claim their favourite seat If yoursquore familiar with the ground yoursquoll know theyrsquore queueing as far as the North Gate and have well over a quarter of a mile before they can get in via the Grace Gate Members donrsquot have an allocated seat and the really eager ones reach the ground before itrsquos properly light The same used to apply to photographers and Irsquod often pitch up at around seven in the morning to ensure I got the right position near the boundary rope Itrsquos all changed now with the big international agencies having first choice This was the third day of the 2009 Ashes Test which England won by 115 runs
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 5
Eagarrsquos Eye
Africa and New Zealand and have already replaced Tendulkar and Dravid in the collective consciousness
Yet what would be the ideal scoreline The seemingly best result 5ndash0 to India might actually turn the T20 generation off despite any talk of ldquorevengerdquo for the 4ndash0 clean sweep in 2011 Perhaps the perfect outcome would be a 3ndash2 win for India though both scenarios assume that the British weather also enjoys a decent run of form
Indiarsquos last five-Test series was in the West Indies 12 years ago No Indian survives from that tour (Shivnarine Chanderpaul the Keith Richards of cricket had already racked up more than 50 Tests for the hosts however and a young Chris Gayle was finding his feet) England may prove a good start for the new-look team though the route back to the No 1
spot might well be made easier by playing more Tests at home than abroad
Their fans meanwhile are blessed with the kind of short memory that hastens forgiveness bad tours (such as the disasters in England and Australia starting in 2011) are easily forgotten by a good showing at home even against lesser teams A five-Test series is a novelty for the majority of Indian fans
India are roughly in the position Australia were in back in 1977-78 when they had lost their stars to Kerry Packerrsquos series and hosted a full-strength India That series ended 3ndash2 to Australia and helped reconnect their fans to traditional cricket Now is a good time for history to do what it is good at repeat itself
Suresh Menon is editor of Wisden India Almanack
1
6
Ah Arundel Like Wormsley itrsquos an amazing ground created by a fabulously wealthy man driven to achieve an ambitious design Here in Sussex the dream was dreamed by the Duke of Norfolk ndash why donrsquot aristocrats ever choose to live in the county whose name they bear ndash at the end of the 19th century and over the years the castle ground has seen some magnificent cricket The teams here have just contested the 2013 National Schools Twenty20 final and if you think you can see more of a spring in the step of the lads in yellow yoursquore right Shrewsbury have just beaten Bedersquos
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 2
WisdenEXTRA England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 7
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series8
For ten years the Ashes stood as the last redoubt of the five-Test series But before the boards were seduced by cricket in pyjamas there were countless classics from outside the EnglandndashAustralia duopoly Rob Smyth chooses five of the best
This summer Test cricketrsquos disciples have an unexpected reward the BCCI of all bodies have agreed for India to play their first five-Test series since 2001-02 (That West Indies won 2ndash1 tells you it was a long time ago) If Test cricket is the ultimate sporting format ndash and a vaguely persuasively case to the contrary has yet to be presented ndash then a five-Test series must be the ultimate ultimate Itrsquos not just bowlers who have a natural length pop songs are right at three minutes and films at 90 while a Test series ndash it just has to be five
Itrsquos like a fusion of the best of cinema and television Five feature-length episodes which tell wonderfully engaging stories in isolation yet which are also interwoven to reveal twists subplots rivalries and character arcs with each episode more dramatic and significant than the last It defines careers ndash lives even ndash and inspires men to do things of which they did not know themselves capable
Australia 2 West Indies 1 1960-61ldquoNeverrdquo said Wisden ldquohas it been more apparent that the game is greater than the resultrdquo This was a series bathed in goodwill from the moment the captains Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud decided to buckle their swash The five matches gave the kiss of life to Test cricket after a dull end to the 1950s ndash and the kiss of hope that sustained the romantic through an even duller 1960s
The Tied Test as close to perfection as a cricket match will ever be overshadows all But there is so much more to recall two swaggering hundreds apiece from Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai a hat-trick from Lance Gibbs and particularly the superheroism of Alan Davidson who took 33 wickets and scored 212 runs in just four Tests
There were other heart-stopping finishes as well Australiarsquos last pair of Slasher Mackay and Lindsay Kline held on for nearly two hours in the Fourth Test at Adelaide and Australia sneaked over the line by two wickets in the decider at Melbourne
After a phenomenal series ndash one that made a drum-and-bass track of even the most relaxed ticker ndash came a ticker-tape farewell with over 100000 Australians saying goodbye to the West Indians Truly the game was the thing For once it was not trite to say there were no real losers It started with a Tied Test and in a sense ended with a tied series
West Indies 2 Pakistan 1 1976-77This might be Test cricketrsquos best-kept secret The stories of two West Indies series in the mid-1970s ndash away to Australia and England ndash are regularly taught on the cricket history curriculum yet this Pakistan encounter remains largely untold All that most people know are the more memorable details such as Colin Croftrsquos eight for 29 or West Indies conceding a then-record 68 Extras in an innings
West Indiesrsquo eventual victory was significant in their rise to world domination as it cemented their belief in the tyranny of fast bowling They found the last two parts of their first great pace quartet with Croft and Joel Garner sharing 58 wickets in their debut series Pakistanrsquos star was Wasim Raja a fearless counter-attacker who walloped 14 sixes still unsurpassed in any Test series
The First Test see-sawed violently and ultimately came down to the last-wicket pairs Pakistanrsquos added 133 in the second innings aided by many of those record-breaking Extras before West Indiesrsquo held
The magic number
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 9
on grimly for a draw Croft brutalised Pakistan to win the Second The tourists overcame a huge first-innings deficit to draw the Third and won the Fourth at a canter after one of the great all-round captainrsquos performances from Mushtaq Mohammad who went into the game in dreadful form but scored a century and took eight wickets
The momentum was seemingly with Pakistan but West Indies ignored that to win the deciding Test comfortably with Gordon Greenidge scoring 100 and 82 A formidable team were coming together and it would be more than a decade before they were properly tested on their own patch ndash again by Pakistan the one team who consistently stood up to them during their world domination
England 1 Pakistan 2 1992Reverse-swingrsquos greatest summer was shiny on one side thanks to the blinding brilliance of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and seriously abrasive on the other The enmity between England and Pakistan has never been greater Wisden said it was ldquoas eventful as any tour of England there has beenrdquo When the Pakistanis returned in 1996 ldquono tour ndash save perhaps the Australiansrsquo first after Bodyline ndash can have needed more delicate handlingrdquo The prequel of the 1992 World Cup final sparked a mutual mistrust adding enormously to a contest already a compelling study in contrasts Englandrsquos honest endeavour against Pakistanrsquos naked talent
Opposites infract England thought Pakistan were ball-tampering Pakistan thought Englandrsquos umpires were cheating Aqib Javed got shirty over a jumper at Old Trafford And when Graham Gooch was appallingly reprieved despite being clearly run out at Headingley the offending image reportedly appeared on buses in Pakistan
A limited England aided by a horse called Mallender did well to hang in the series for so long but it was right and proper that Pakistan should win Stumps toes and front pads will never be under as much threat as they were that summer Wasim and Waqarrsquos new-fangled old-ball threat was like nothing anyone had seen
The pair were Kryptonite when the ball was reversing not only for tailenders but also middle-order batsmen new to the crease In five different collapses across the series England lost 31 wickets for 133 runs Some of the batsmen cried foul Thankfully the abiding memory of the summer is of the shiny side the unprecedented genius of two men who made sure the old ball would not shut up
Australia 1 West Indies 2 1992-93One of the joys of success is that once-painful memories become warmly remembered rites of passage This series so traumatic at the time for Australia can now be viewed as an essential part of their rise to greatness By 1994-95 when they dethroned West Indies they were too good so this is the closest Test cricket has come to a contest between two all-time great sides Australia were
not quite there and West Indies were on the way down they met in the middle with immense results
There were famous moments from future giants Brian Lararsquos 277 one of the great maiden centuries turned a bore draw into a cherished memory while Shane Warnersquos flipper of the century to Richie Richardson was a big moment in his career part one of a match-winning seven-for on his home ground
The prospect of West Indies losing a series for the first time in 13 years did not impress Curtly Ambrose Few men have ever raged with such furious pride against the potential dying of a light At Adelaide he took ten wickets in one of the most amazing chapters in Test cricket Australiarsquos tailenders took them to the brink of a series win before Craig McDermott was given out to Courtney Walsh Australia had to adjust to the most alien troubling of concepts glorious failure and on Australia Day too
The deciding Test at Perth was over almost before it started Ambrose spread-eagled Australia with an outrageous spell of seven for one West Indies retained their unofficial world title and Australia were left to wonder if they would ever know such riches
England 2 South Africa 1 1998This was cricket as noir rugged hard-boiled and with a devastating twist when South Africa the unwitting patsies ended up losing a series they might conceivably have won 4ndash0 The contest meant an abnormal amount to both sides England wanted their first win in a five-Test series for nearly 12 years South Africa their first series win in England for 33
South Africa were a borderline lbw decision away from going 2ndash0 up ndash ldquoThatrsquoll dordquo thought Allan Donald as the ball thudded into Angus Fraserrsquos pad ndash and then lost the last two Tests The first of those at Trent Bridge was famous for the duel between Mike Atherton and Donald ndash a window into the soul of two outstanding competitors and authentic tough guys There was an unspoken agreement that the match and probably the series would be decided by that clash ldquoDonaldrdquo said Wisden ldquohurled himself at Atherton like a man who had taken 24 wickets in the series and had just worked out that he could still finish on the losing siderdquo ndash and both went to places they had never been before
If Atherton was justly the star his old mate Fraser deserved enormous credit he took 18 wickets in the two England victories That included eight in the final Test a low-scoring dogfight at Headingley It was an unturnoffable mishmash of collapses over-my-dead-body defiance downright nastiness and umpiring howlers primarily from Javed Akhtar Indeed the whole series might be used to convert DRS sceptics Then again perhaps not had DRS been in place we would not have had Atherton v Donald the thing above all else that elevated this series
Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series10
Three years ago Hampshirersquos Rose Bowl staged its first Test and the weather ruined the party Britain of course is full of stiff upper lips and they donrsquot come much stiffer than this stoic couple resolutely staying put while all around have fled At least I think theyrsquore under there somewhere The blue and yellow plus the geometric pattern of modern seating make this rather pleasing ndash more so than the game which dribbled away to a dreich draw
Eagarrsquos Eye 3
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
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WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
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lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
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lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
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OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
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VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series4
The greater subtlety the more nuanced battles between ball and bat the fact that the Tests are individually discrete yet constitute a complete entity whose intricacy becomes clear only in retrospect ndash all add up to make Test cricket a feast for the soul And it is a feast that can be enjoyed by the delivery the stroke the over the session the day the match even the series whose ebb and flow spread over a month or more It is an intellectual exercise with every incident a part of a larger whole a piece of a huge jigsaw that reveals itself sometimes only years later The continuing interest in the Bodyline series (and the publication of books eight decades after the event) is a good example
Yet if it is the here-and-now of the shorter game that is more attractive to fans then Test cricket will
have to sell itself better The IPL for all its faults has had some beneficial effects on the five-day game ldquoThere are more decisions to be made nowrdquo says former India captain Anil Kumble who in an 18-year career played in only one full five-Test series against West Indies in 1996-97 ldquoTeams are no longer comfortable about declaring early They know that at a pinch a team can get 200 runs in 20ndash25 oversrdquo
How India fare in England over the next few weeks might shape the future of the five-Test series at least for them As many have pointed out Indians are not great fans of cricket so much as great fans of cricketers And in that slightly skewed perspective might lie the fortunes of Test cricket If the team win and the heroes shine then there will be great interest The Kohlis and Pujaras have done well in South
Two and a half hours before the start of play and MCC members snake round the perimeter of Lordrsquos to claim their favourite seat If yoursquore familiar with the ground yoursquoll know theyrsquore queueing as far as the North Gate and have well over a quarter of a mile before they can get in via the Grace Gate Members donrsquot have an allocated seat and the really eager ones reach the ground before itrsquos properly light The same used to apply to photographers and Irsquod often pitch up at around seven in the morning to ensure I got the right position near the boundary rope Itrsquos all changed now with the big international agencies having first choice This was the third day of the 2009 Ashes Test which England won by 115 runs
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 5
Eagarrsquos Eye
Africa and New Zealand and have already replaced Tendulkar and Dravid in the collective consciousness
Yet what would be the ideal scoreline The seemingly best result 5ndash0 to India might actually turn the T20 generation off despite any talk of ldquorevengerdquo for the 4ndash0 clean sweep in 2011 Perhaps the perfect outcome would be a 3ndash2 win for India though both scenarios assume that the British weather also enjoys a decent run of form
Indiarsquos last five-Test series was in the West Indies 12 years ago No Indian survives from that tour (Shivnarine Chanderpaul the Keith Richards of cricket had already racked up more than 50 Tests for the hosts however and a young Chris Gayle was finding his feet) England may prove a good start for the new-look team though the route back to the No 1
spot might well be made easier by playing more Tests at home than abroad
Their fans meanwhile are blessed with the kind of short memory that hastens forgiveness bad tours (such as the disasters in England and Australia starting in 2011) are easily forgotten by a good showing at home even against lesser teams A five-Test series is a novelty for the majority of Indian fans
India are roughly in the position Australia were in back in 1977-78 when they had lost their stars to Kerry Packerrsquos series and hosted a full-strength India That series ended 3ndash2 to Australia and helped reconnect their fans to traditional cricket Now is a good time for history to do what it is good at repeat itself
Suresh Menon is editor of Wisden India Almanack
1
6
Ah Arundel Like Wormsley itrsquos an amazing ground created by a fabulously wealthy man driven to achieve an ambitious design Here in Sussex the dream was dreamed by the Duke of Norfolk ndash why donrsquot aristocrats ever choose to live in the county whose name they bear ndash at the end of the 19th century and over the years the castle ground has seen some magnificent cricket The teams here have just contested the 2013 National Schools Twenty20 final and if you think you can see more of a spring in the step of the lads in yellow yoursquore right Shrewsbury have just beaten Bedersquos
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 2
WisdenEXTRA England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 7
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series8
For ten years the Ashes stood as the last redoubt of the five-Test series But before the boards were seduced by cricket in pyjamas there were countless classics from outside the EnglandndashAustralia duopoly Rob Smyth chooses five of the best
This summer Test cricketrsquos disciples have an unexpected reward the BCCI of all bodies have agreed for India to play their first five-Test series since 2001-02 (That West Indies won 2ndash1 tells you it was a long time ago) If Test cricket is the ultimate sporting format ndash and a vaguely persuasively case to the contrary has yet to be presented ndash then a five-Test series must be the ultimate ultimate Itrsquos not just bowlers who have a natural length pop songs are right at three minutes and films at 90 while a Test series ndash it just has to be five
Itrsquos like a fusion of the best of cinema and television Five feature-length episodes which tell wonderfully engaging stories in isolation yet which are also interwoven to reveal twists subplots rivalries and character arcs with each episode more dramatic and significant than the last It defines careers ndash lives even ndash and inspires men to do things of which they did not know themselves capable
Australia 2 West Indies 1 1960-61ldquoNeverrdquo said Wisden ldquohas it been more apparent that the game is greater than the resultrdquo This was a series bathed in goodwill from the moment the captains Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud decided to buckle their swash The five matches gave the kiss of life to Test cricket after a dull end to the 1950s ndash and the kiss of hope that sustained the romantic through an even duller 1960s
The Tied Test as close to perfection as a cricket match will ever be overshadows all But there is so much more to recall two swaggering hundreds apiece from Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai a hat-trick from Lance Gibbs and particularly the superheroism of Alan Davidson who took 33 wickets and scored 212 runs in just four Tests
There were other heart-stopping finishes as well Australiarsquos last pair of Slasher Mackay and Lindsay Kline held on for nearly two hours in the Fourth Test at Adelaide and Australia sneaked over the line by two wickets in the decider at Melbourne
After a phenomenal series ndash one that made a drum-and-bass track of even the most relaxed ticker ndash came a ticker-tape farewell with over 100000 Australians saying goodbye to the West Indians Truly the game was the thing For once it was not trite to say there were no real losers It started with a Tied Test and in a sense ended with a tied series
West Indies 2 Pakistan 1 1976-77This might be Test cricketrsquos best-kept secret The stories of two West Indies series in the mid-1970s ndash away to Australia and England ndash are regularly taught on the cricket history curriculum yet this Pakistan encounter remains largely untold All that most people know are the more memorable details such as Colin Croftrsquos eight for 29 or West Indies conceding a then-record 68 Extras in an innings
West Indiesrsquo eventual victory was significant in their rise to world domination as it cemented their belief in the tyranny of fast bowling They found the last two parts of their first great pace quartet with Croft and Joel Garner sharing 58 wickets in their debut series Pakistanrsquos star was Wasim Raja a fearless counter-attacker who walloped 14 sixes still unsurpassed in any Test series
The First Test see-sawed violently and ultimately came down to the last-wicket pairs Pakistanrsquos added 133 in the second innings aided by many of those record-breaking Extras before West Indiesrsquo held
The magic number
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 9
on grimly for a draw Croft brutalised Pakistan to win the Second The tourists overcame a huge first-innings deficit to draw the Third and won the Fourth at a canter after one of the great all-round captainrsquos performances from Mushtaq Mohammad who went into the game in dreadful form but scored a century and took eight wickets
The momentum was seemingly with Pakistan but West Indies ignored that to win the deciding Test comfortably with Gordon Greenidge scoring 100 and 82 A formidable team were coming together and it would be more than a decade before they were properly tested on their own patch ndash again by Pakistan the one team who consistently stood up to them during their world domination
England 1 Pakistan 2 1992Reverse-swingrsquos greatest summer was shiny on one side thanks to the blinding brilliance of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and seriously abrasive on the other The enmity between England and Pakistan has never been greater Wisden said it was ldquoas eventful as any tour of England there has beenrdquo When the Pakistanis returned in 1996 ldquono tour ndash save perhaps the Australiansrsquo first after Bodyline ndash can have needed more delicate handlingrdquo The prequel of the 1992 World Cup final sparked a mutual mistrust adding enormously to a contest already a compelling study in contrasts Englandrsquos honest endeavour against Pakistanrsquos naked talent
Opposites infract England thought Pakistan were ball-tampering Pakistan thought Englandrsquos umpires were cheating Aqib Javed got shirty over a jumper at Old Trafford And when Graham Gooch was appallingly reprieved despite being clearly run out at Headingley the offending image reportedly appeared on buses in Pakistan
A limited England aided by a horse called Mallender did well to hang in the series for so long but it was right and proper that Pakistan should win Stumps toes and front pads will never be under as much threat as they were that summer Wasim and Waqarrsquos new-fangled old-ball threat was like nothing anyone had seen
The pair were Kryptonite when the ball was reversing not only for tailenders but also middle-order batsmen new to the crease In five different collapses across the series England lost 31 wickets for 133 runs Some of the batsmen cried foul Thankfully the abiding memory of the summer is of the shiny side the unprecedented genius of two men who made sure the old ball would not shut up
Australia 1 West Indies 2 1992-93One of the joys of success is that once-painful memories become warmly remembered rites of passage This series so traumatic at the time for Australia can now be viewed as an essential part of their rise to greatness By 1994-95 when they dethroned West Indies they were too good so this is the closest Test cricket has come to a contest between two all-time great sides Australia were
not quite there and West Indies were on the way down they met in the middle with immense results
There were famous moments from future giants Brian Lararsquos 277 one of the great maiden centuries turned a bore draw into a cherished memory while Shane Warnersquos flipper of the century to Richie Richardson was a big moment in his career part one of a match-winning seven-for on his home ground
The prospect of West Indies losing a series for the first time in 13 years did not impress Curtly Ambrose Few men have ever raged with such furious pride against the potential dying of a light At Adelaide he took ten wickets in one of the most amazing chapters in Test cricket Australiarsquos tailenders took them to the brink of a series win before Craig McDermott was given out to Courtney Walsh Australia had to adjust to the most alien troubling of concepts glorious failure and on Australia Day too
The deciding Test at Perth was over almost before it started Ambrose spread-eagled Australia with an outrageous spell of seven for one West Indies retained their unofficial world title and Australia were left to wonder if they would ever know such riches
England 2 South Africa 1 1998This was cricket as noir rugged hard-boiled and with a devastating twist when South Africa the unwitting patsies ended up losing a series they might conceivably have won 4ndash0 The contest meant an abnormal amount to both sides England wanted their first win in a five-Test series for nearly 12 years South Africa their first series win in England for 33
South Africa were a borderline lbw decision away from going 2ndash0 up ndash ldquoThatrsquoll dordquo thought Allan Donald as the ball thudded into Angus Fraserrsquos pad ndash and then lost the last two Tests The first of those at Trent Bridge was famous for the duel between Mike Atherton and Donald ndash a window into the soul of two outstanding competitors and authentic tough guys There was an unspoken agreement that the match and probably the series would be decided by that clash ldquoDonaldrdquo said Wisden ldquohurled himself at Atherton like a man who had taken 24 wickets in the series and had just worked out that he could still finish on the losing siderdquo ndash and both went to places they had never been before
If Atherton was justly the star his old mate Fraser deserved enormous credit he took 18 wickets in the two England victories That included eight in the final Test a low-scoring dogfight at Headingley It was an unturnoffable mishmash of collapses over-my-dead-body defiance downright nastiness and umpiring howlers primarily from Javed Akhtar Indeed the whole series might be used to convert DRS sceptics Then again perhaps not had DRS been in place we would not have had Atherton v Donald the thing above all else that elevated this series
Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series10
Three years ago Hampshirersquos Rose Bowl staged its first Test and the weather ruined the party Britain of course is full of stiff upper lips and they donrsquot come much stiffer than this stoic couple resolutely staying put while all around have fled At least I think theyrsquore under there somewhere The blue and yellow plus the geometric pattern of modern seating make this rather pleasing ndash more so than the game which dribbled away to a dreich draw
Eagarrsquos Eye 3
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 5
Eagarrsquos Eye
Africa and New Zealand and have already replaced Tendulkar and Dravid in the collective consciousness
Yet what would be the ideal scoreline The seemingly best result 5ndash0 to India might actually turn the T20 generation off despite any talk of ldquorevengerdquo for the 4ndash0 clean sweep in 2011 Perhaps the perfect outcome would be a 3ndash2 win for India though both scenarios assume that the British weather also enjoys a decent run of form
Indiarsquos last five-Test series was in the West Indies 12 years ago No Indian survives from that tour (Shivnarine Chanderpaul the Keith Richards of cricket had already racked up more than 50 Tests for the hosts however and a young Chris Gayle was finding his feet) England may prove a good start for the new-look team though the route back to the No 1
spot might well be made easier by playing more Tests at home than abroad
Their fans meanwhile are blessed with the kind of short memory that hastens forgiveness bad tours (such as the disasters in England and Australia starting in 2011) are easily forgotten by a good showing at home even against lesser teams A five-Test series is a novelty for the majority of Indian fans
India are roughly in the position Australia were in back in 1977-78 when they had lost their stars to Kerry Packerrsquos series and hosted a full-strength India That series ended 3ndash2 to Australia and helped reconnect their fans to traditional cricket Now is a good time for history to do what it is good at repeat itself
Suresh Menon is editor of Wisden India Almanack
1
6
Ah Arundel Like Wormsley itrsquos an amazing ground created by a fabulously wealthy man driven to achieve an ambitious design Here in Sussex the dream was dreamed by the Duke of Norfolk ndash why donrsquot aristocrats ever choose to live in the county whose name they bear ndash at the end of the 19th century and over the years the castle ground has seen some magnificent cricket The teams here have just contested the 2013 National Schools Twenty20 final and if you think you can see more of a spring in the step of the lads in yellow yoursquore right Shrewsbury have just beaten Bedersquos
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 2
WisdenEXTRA England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 7
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series8
For ten years the Ashes stood as the last redoubt of the five-Test series But before the boards were seduced by cricket in pyjamas there were countless classics from outside the EnglandndashAustralia duopoly Rob Smyth chooses five of the best
This summer Test cricketrsquos disciples have an unexpected reward the BCCI of all bodies have agreed for India to play their first five-Test series since 2001-02 (That West Indies won 2ndash1 tells you it was a long time ago) If Test cricket is the ultimate sporting format ndash and a vaguely persuasively case to the contrary has yet to be presented ndash then a five-Test series must be the ultimate ultimate Itrsquos not just bowlers who have a natural length pop songs are right at three minutes and films at 90 while a Test series ndash it just has to be five
Itrsquos like a fusion of the best of cinema and television Five feature-length episodes which tell wonderfully engaging stories in isolation yet which are also interwoven to reveal twists subplots rivalries and character arcs with each episode more dramatic and significant than the last It defines careers ndash lives even ndash and inspires men to do things of which they did not know themselves capable
Australia 2 West Indies 1 1960-61ldquoNeverrdquo said Wisden ldquohas it been more apparent that the game is greater than the resultrdquo This was a series bathed in goodwill from the moment the captains Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud decided to buckle their swash The five matches gave the kiss of life to Test cricket after a dull end to the 1950s ndash and the kiss of hope that sustained the romantic through an even duller 1960s
The Tied Test as close to perfection as a cricket match will ever be overshadows all But there is so much more to recall two swaggering hundreds apiece from Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai a hat-trick from Lance Gibbs and particularly the superheroism of Alan Davidson who took 33 wickets and scored 212 runs in just four Tests
There were other heart-stopping finishes as well Australiarsquos last pair of Slasher Mackay and Lindsay Kline held on for nearly two hours in the Fourth Test at Adelaide and Australia sneaked over the line by two wickets in the decider at Melbourne
After a phenomenal series ndash one that made a drum-and-bass track of even the most relaxed ticker ndash came a ticker-tape farewell with over 100000 Australians saying goodbye to the West Indians Truly the game was the thing For once it was not trite to say there were no real losers It started with a Tied Test and in a sense ended with a tied series
West Indies 2 Pakistan 1 1976-77This might be Test cricketrsquos best-kept secret The stories of two West Indies series in the mid-1970s ndash away to Australia and England ndash are regularly taught on the cricket history curriculum yet this Pakistan encounter remains largely untold All that most people know are the more memorable details such as Colin Croftrsquos eight for 29 or West Indies conceding a then-record 68 Extras in an innings
West Indiesrsquo eventual victory was significant in their rise to world domination as it cemented their belief in the tyranny of fast bowling They found the last two parts of their first great pace quartet with Croft and Joel Garner sharing 58 wickets in their debut series Pakistanrsquos star was Wasim Raja a fearless counter-attacker who walloped 14 sixes still unsurpassed in any Test series
The First Test see-sawed violently and ultimately came down to the last-wicket pairs Pakistanrsquos added 133 in the second innings aided by many of those record-breaking Extras before West Indiesrsquo held
The magic number
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 9
on grimly for a draw Croft brutalised Pakistan to win the Second The tourists overcame a huge first-innings deficit to draw the Third and won the Fourth at a canter after one of the great all-round captainrsquos performances from Mushtaq Mohammad who went into the game in dreadful form but scored a century and took eight wickets
The momentum was seemingly with Pakistan but West Indies ignored that to win the deciding Test comfortably with Gordon Greenidge scoring 100 and 82 A formidable team were coming together and it would be more than a decade before they were properly tested on their own patch ndash again by Pakistan the one team who consistently stood up to them during their world domination
England 1 Pakistan 2 1992Reverse-swingrsquos greatest summer was shiny on one side thanks to the blinding brilliance of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and seriously abrasive on the other The enmity between England and Pakistan has never been greater Wisden said it was ldquoas eventful as any tour of England there has beenrdquo When the Pakistanis returned in 1996 ldquono tour ndash save perhaps the Australiansrsquo first after Bodyline ndash can have needed more delicate handlingrdquo The prequel of the 1992 World Cup final sparked a mutual mistrust adding enormously to a contest already a compelling study in contrasts Englandrsquos honest endeavour against Pakistanrsquos naked talent
Opposites infract England thought Pakistan were ball-tampering Pakistan thought Englandrsquos umpires were cheating Aqib Javed got shirty over a jumper at Old Trafford And when Graham Gooch was appallingly reprieved despite being clearly run out at Headingley the offending image reportedly appeared on buses in Pakistan
A limited England aided by a horse called Mallender did well to hang in the series for so long but it was right and proper that Pakistan should win Stumps toes and front pads will never be under as much threat as they were that summer Wasim and Waqarrsquos new-fangled old-ball threat was like nothing anyone had seen
The pair were Kryptonite when the ball was reversing not only for tailenders but also middle-order batsmen new to the crease In five different collapses across the series England lost 31 wickets for 133 runs Some of the batsmen cried foul Thankfully the abiding memory of the summer is of the shiny side the unprecedented genius of two men who made sure the old ball would not shut up
Australia 1 West Indies 2 1992-93One of the joys of success is that once-painful memories become warmly remembered rites of passage This series so traumatic at the time for Australia can now be viewed as an essential part of their rise to greatness By 1994-95 when they dethroned West Indies they were too good so this is the closest Test cricket has come to a contest between two all-time great sides Australia were
not quite there and West Indies were on the way down they met in the middle with immense results
There were famous moments from future giants Brian Lararsquos 277 one of the great maiden centuries turned a bore draw into a cherished memory while Shane Warnersquos flipper of the century to Richie Richardson was a big moment in his career part one of a match-winning seven-for on his home ground
The prospect of West Indies losing a series for the first time in 13 years did not impress Curtly Ambrose Few men have ever raged with such furious pride against the potential dying of a light At Adelaide he took ten wickets in one of the most amazing chapters in Test cricket Australiarsquos tailenders took them to the brink of a series win before Craig McDermott was given out to Courtney Walsh Australia had to adjust to the most alien troubling of concepts glorious failure and on Australia Day too
The deciding Test at Perth was over almost before it started Ambrose spread-eagled Australia with an outrageous spell of seven for one West Indies retained their unofficial world title and Australia were left to wonder if they would ever know such riches
England 2 South Africa 1 1998This was cricket as noir rugged hard-boiled and with a devastating twist when South Africa the unwitting patsies ended up losing a series they might conceivably have won 4ndash0 The contest meant an abnormal amount to both sides England wanted their first win in a five-Test series for nearly 12 years South Africa their first series win in England for 33
South Africa were a borderline lbw decision away from going 2ndash0 up ndash ldquoThatrsquoll dordquo thought Allan Donald as the ball thudded into Angus Fraserrsquos pad ndash and then lost the last two Tests The first of those at Trent Bridge was famous for the duel between Mike Atherton and Donald ndash a window into the soul of two outstanding competitors and authentic tough guys There was an unspoken agreement that the match and probably the series would be decided by that clash ldquoDonaldrdquo said Wisden ldquohurled himself at Atherton like a man who had taken 24 wickets in the series and had just worked out that he could still finish on the losing siderdquo ndash and both went to places they had never been before
If Atherton was justly the star his old mate Fraser deserved enormous credit he took 18 wickets in the two England victories That included eight in the final Test a low-scoring dogfight at Headingley It was an unturnoffable mishmash of collapses over-my-dead-body defiance downright nastiness and umpiring howlers primarily from Javed Akhtar Indeed the whole series might be used to convert DRS sceptics Then again perhaps not had DRS been in place we would not have had Atherton v Donald the thing above all else that elevated this series
Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series10
Three years ago Hampshirersquos Rose Bowl staged its first Test and the weather ruined the party Britain of course is full of stiff upper lips and they donrsquot come much stiffer than this stoic couple resolutely staying put while all around have fled At least I think theyrsquore under there somewhere The blue and yellow plus the geometric pattern of modern seating make this rather pleasing ndash more so than the game which dribbled away to a dreich draw
Eagarrsquos Eye 3
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
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lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
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THE GUARDIAN
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BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
6
Ah Arundel Like Wormsley itrsquos an amazing ground created by a fabulously wealthy man driven to achieve an ambitious design Here in Sussex the dream was dreamed by the Duke of Norfolk ndash why donrsquot aristocrats ever choose to live in the county whose name they bear ndash at the end of the 19th century and over the years the castle ground has seen some magnificent cricket The teams here have just contested the 2013 National Schools Twenty20 final and if you think you can see more of a spring in the step of the lads in yellow yoursquore right Shrewsbury have just beaten Bedersquos
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 2
WisdenEXTRA England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 7
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series8
For ten years the Ashes stood as the last redoubt of the five-Test series But before the boards were seduced by cricket in pyjamas there were countless classics from outside the EnglandndashAustralia duopoly Rob Smyth chooses five of the best
This summer Test cricketrsquos disciples have an unexpected reward the BCCI of all bodies have agreed for India to play their first five-Test series since 2001-02 (That West Indies won 2ndash1 tells you it was a long time ago) If Test cricket is the ultimate sporting format ndash and a vaguely persuasively case to the contrary has yet to be presented ndash then a five-Test series must be the ultimate ultimate Itrsquos not just bowlers who have a natural length pop songs are right at three minutes and films at 90 while a Test series ndash it just has to be five
Itrsquos like a fusion of the best of cinema and television Five feature-length episodes which tell wonderfully engaging stories in isolation yet which are also interwoven to reveal twists subplots rivalries and character arcs with each episode more dramatic and significant than the last It defines careers ndash lives even ndash and inspires men to do things of which they did not know themselves capable
Australia 2 West Indies 1 1960-61ldquoNeverrdquo said Wisden ldquohas it been more apparent that the game is greater than the resultrdquo This was a series bathed in goodwill from the moment the captains Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud decided to buckle their swash The five matches gave the kiss of life to Test cricket after a dull end to the 1950s ndash and the kiss of hope that sustained the romantic through an even duller 1960s
The Tied Test as close to perfection as a cricket match will ever be overshadows all But there is so much more to recall two swaggering hundreds apiece from Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai a hat-trick from Lance Gibbs and particularly the superheroism of Alan Davidson who took 33 wickets and scored 212 runs in just four Tests
There were other heart-stopping finishes as well Australiarsquos last pair of Slasher Mackay and Lindsay Kline held on for nearly two hours in the Fourth Test at Adelaide and Australia sneaked over the line by two wickets in the decider at Melbourne
After a phenomenal series ndash one that made a drum-and-bass track of even the most relaxed ticker ndash came a ticker-tape farewell with over 100000 Australians saying goodbye to the West Indians Truly the game was the thing For once it was not trite to say there were no real losers It started with a Tied Test and in a sense ended with a tied series
West Indies 2 Pakistan 1 1976-77This might be Test cricketrsquos best-kept secret The stories of two West Indies series in the mid-1970s ndash away to Australia and England ndash are regularly taught on the cricket history curriculum yet this Pakistan encounter remains largely untold All that most people know are the more memorable details such as Colin Croftrsquos eight for 29 or West Indies conceding a then-record 68 Extras in an innings
West Indiesrsquo eventual victory was significant in their rise to world domination as it cemented their belief in the tyranny of fast bowling They found the last two parts of their first great pace quartet with Croft and Joel Garner sharing 58 wickets in their debut series Pakistanrsquos star was Wasim Raja a fearless counter-attacker who walloped 14 sixes still unsurpassed in any Test series
The First Test see-sawed violently and ultimately came down to the last-wicket pairs Pakistanrsquos added 133 in the second innings aided by many of those record-breaking Extras before West Indiesrsquo held
The magic number
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 9
on grimly for a draw Croft brutalised Pakistan to win the Second The tourists overcame a huge first-innings deficit to draw the Third and won the Fourth at a canter after one of the great all-round captainrsquos performances from Mushtaq Mohammad who went into the game in dreadful form but scored a century and took eight wickets
The momentum was seemingly with Pakistan but West Indies ignored that to win the deciding Test comfortably with Gordon Greenidge scoring 100 and 82 A formidable team were coming together and it would be more than a decade before they were properly tested on their own patch ndash again by Pakistan the one team who consistently stood up to them during their world domination
England 1 Pakistan 2 1992Reverse-swingrsquos greatest summer was shiny on one side thanks to the blinding brilliance of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and seriously abrasive on the other The enmity between England and Pakistan has never been greater Wisden said it was ldquoas eventful as any tour of England there has beenrdquo When the Pakistanis returned in 1996 ldquono tour ndash save perhaps the Australiansrsquo first after Bodyline ndash can have needed more delicate handlingrdquo The prequel of the 1992 World Cup final sparked a mutual mistrust adding enormously to a contest already a compelling study in contrasts Englandrsquos honest endeavour against Pakistanrsquos naked talent
Opposites infract England thought Pakistan were ball-tampering Pakistan thought Englandrsquos umpires were cheating Aqib Javed got shirty over a jumper at Old Trafford And when Graham Gooch was appallingly reprieved despite being clearly run out at Headingley the offending image reportedly appeared on buses in Pakistan
A limited England aided by a horse called Mallender did well to hang in the series for so long but it was right and proper that Pakistan should win Stumps toes and front pads will never be under as much threat as they were that summer Wasim and Waqarrsquos new-fangled old-ball threat was like nothing anyone had seen
The pair were Kryptonite when the ball was reversing not only for tailenders but also middle-order batsmen new to the crease In five different collapses across the series England lost 31 wickets for 133 runs Some of the batsmen cried foul Thankfully the abiding memory of the summer is of the shiny side the unprecedented genius of two men who made sure the old ball would not shut up
Australia 1 West Indies 2 1992-93One of the joys of success is that once-painful memories become warmly remembered rites of passage This series so traumatic at the time for Australia can now be viewed as an essential part of their rise to greatness By 1994-95 when they dethroned West Indies they were too good so this is the closest Test cricket has come to a contest between two all-time great sides Australia were
not quite there and West Indies were on the way down they met in the middle with immense results
There were famous moments from future giants Brian Lararsquos 277 one of the great maiden centuries turned a bore draw into a cherished memory while Shane Warnersquos flipper of the century to Richie Richardson was a big moment in his career part one of a match-winning seven-for on his home ground
The prospect of West Indies losing a series for the first time in 13 years did not impress Curtly Ambrose Few men have ever raged with such furious pride against the potential dying of a light At Adelaide he took ten wickets in one of the most amazing chapters in Test cricket Australiarsquos tailenders took them to the brink of a series win before Craig McDermott was given out to Courtney Walsh Australia had to adjust to the most alien troubling of concepts glorious failure and on Australia Day too
The deciding Test at Perth was over almost before it started Ambrose spread-eagled Australia with an outrageous spell of seven for one West Indies retained their unofficial world title and Australia were left to wonder if they would ever know such riches
England 2 South Africa 1 1998This was cricket as noir rugged hard-boiled and with a devastating twist when South Africa the unwitting patsies ended up losing a series they might conceivably have won 4ndash0 The contest meant an abnormal amount to both sides England wanted their first win in a five-Test series for nearly 12 years South Africa their first series win in England for 33
South Africa were a borderline lbw decision away from going 2ndash0 up ndash ldquoThatrsquoll dordquo thought Allan Donald as the ball thudded into Angus Fraserrsquos pad ndash and then lost the last two Tests The first of those at Trent Bridge was famous for the duel between Mike Atherton and Donald ndash a window into the soul of two outstanding competitors and authentic tough guys There was an unspoken agreement that the match and probably the series would be decided by that clash ldquoDonaldrdquo said Wisden ldquohurled himself at Atherton like a man who had taken 24 wickets in the series and had just worked out that he could still finish on the losing siderdquo ndash and both went to places they had never been before
If Atherton was justly the star his old mate Fraser deserved enormous credit he took 18 wickets in the two England victories That included eight in the final Test a low-scoring dogfight at Headingley It was an unturnoffable mishmash of collapses over-my-dead-body defiance downright nastiness and umpiring howlers primarily from Javed Akhtar Indeed the whole series might be used to convert DRS sceptics Then again perhaps not had DRS been in place we would not have had Atherton v Donald the thing above all else that elevated this series
Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series10
Three years ago Hampshirersquos Rose Bowl staged its first Test and the weather ruined the party Britain of course is full of stiff upper lips and they donrsquot come much stiffer than this stoic couple resolutely staying put while all around have fled At least I think theyrsquore under there somewhere The blue and yellow plus the geometric pattern of modern seating make this rather pleasing ndash more so than the game which dribbled away to a dreich draw
Eagarrsquos Eye 3
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 7
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series8
For ten years the Ashes stood as the last redoubt of the five-Test series But before the boards were seduced by cricket in pyjamas there were countless classics from outside the EnglandndashAustralia duopoly Rob Smyth chooses five of the best
This summer Test cricketrsquos disciples have an unexpected reward the BCCI of all bodies have agreed for India to play their first five-Test series since 2001-02 (That West Indies won 2ndash1 tells you it was a long time ago) If Test cricket is the ultimate sporting format ndash and a vaguely persuasively case to the contrary has yet to be presented ndash then a five-Test series must be the ultimate ultimate Itrsquos not just bowlers who have a natural length pop songs are right at three minutes and films at 90 while a Test series ndash it just has to be five
Itrsquos like a fusion of the best of cinema and television Five feature-length episodes which tell wonderfully engaging stories in isolation yet which are also interwoven to reveal twists subplots rivalries and character arcs with each episode more dramatic and significant than the last It defines careers ndash lives even ndash and inspires men to do things of which they did not know themselves capable
Australia 2 West Indies 1 1960-61ldquoNeverrdquo said Wisden ldquohas it been more apparent that the game is greater than the resultrdquo This was a series bathed in goodwill from the moment the captains Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud decided to buckle their swash The five matches gave the kiss of life to Test cricket after a dull end to the 1950s ndash and the kiss of hope that sustained the romantic through an even duller 1960s
The Tied Test as close to perfection as a cricket match will ever be overshadows all But there is so much more to recall two swaggering hundreds apiece from Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai a hat-trick from Lance Gibbs and particularly the superheroism of Alan Davidson who took 33 wickets and scored 212 runs in just four Tests
There were other heart-stopping finishes as well Australiarsquos last pair of Slasher Mackay and Lindsay Kline held on for nearly two hours in the Fourth Test at Adelaide and Australia sneaked over the line by two wickets in the decider at Melbourne
After a phenomenal series ndash one that made a drum-and-bass track of even the most relaxed ticker ndash came a ticker-tape farewell with over 100000 Australians saying goodbye to the West Indians Truly the game was the thing For once it was not trite to say there were no real losers It started with a Tied Test and in a sense ended with a tied series
West Indies 2 Pakistan 1 1976-77This might be Test cricketrsquos best-kept secret The stories of two West Indies series in the mid-1970s ndash away to Australia and England ndash are regularly taught on the cricket history curriculum yet this Pakistan encounter remains largely untold All that most people know are the more memorable details such as Colin Croftrsquos eight for 29 or West Indies conceding a then-record 68 Extras in an innings
West Indiesrsquo eventual victory was significant in their rise to world domination as it cemented their belief in the tyranny of fast bowling They found the last two parts of their first great pace quartet with Croft and Joel Garner sharing 58 wickets in their debut series Pakistanrsquos star was Wasim Raja a fearless counter-attacker who walloped 14 sixes still unsurpassed in any Test series
The First Test see-sawed violently and ultimately came down to the last-wicket pairs Pakistanrsquos added 133 in the second innings aided by many of those record-breaking Extras before West Indiesrsquo held
The magic number
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 9
on grimly for a draw Croft brutalised Pakistan to win the Second The tourists overcame a huge first-innings deficit to draw the Third and won the Fourth at a canter after one of the great all-round captainrsquos performances from Mushtaq Mohammad who went into the game in dreadful form but scored a century and took eight wickets
The momentum was seemingly with Pakistan but West Indies ignored that to win the deciding Test comfortably with Gordon Greenidge scoring 100 and 82 A formidable team were coming together and it would be more than a decade before they were properly tested on their own patch ndash again by Pakistan the one team who consistently stood up to them during their world domination
England 1 Pakistan 2 1992Reverse-swingrsquos greatest summer was shiny on one side thanks to the blinding brilliance of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and seriously abrasive on the other The enmity between England and Pakistan has never been greater Wisden said it was ldquoas eventful as any tour of England there has beenrdquo When the Pakistanis returned in 1996 ldquono tour ndash save perhaps the Australiansrsquo first after Bodyline ndash can have needed more delicate handlingrdquo The prequel of the 1992 World Cup final sparked a mutual mistrust adding enormously to a contest already a compelling study in contrasts Englandrsquos honest endeavour against Pakistanrsquos naked talent
Opposites infract England thought Pakistan were ball-tampering Pakistan thought Englandrsquos umpires were cheating Aqib Javed got shirty over a jumper at Old Trafford And when Graham Gooch was appallingly reprieved despite being clearly run out at Headingley the offending image reportedly appeared on buses in Pakistan
A limited England aided by a horse called Mallender did well to hang in the series for so long but it was right and proper that Pakistan should win Stumps toes and front pads will never be under as much threat as they were that summer Wasim and Waqarrsquos new-fangled old-ball threat was like nothing anyone had seen
The pair were Kryptonite when the ball was reversing not only for tailenders but also middle-order batsmen new to the crease In five different collapses across the series England lost 31 wickets for 133 runs Some of the batsmen cried foul Thankfully the abiding memory of the summer is of the shiny side the unprecedented genius of two men who made sure the old ball would not shut up
Australia 1 West Indies 2 1992-93One of the joys of success is that once-painful memories become warmly remembered rites of passage This series so traumatic at the time for Australia can now be viewed as an essential part of their rise to greatness By 1994-95 when they dethroned West Indies they were too good so this is the closest Test cricket has come to a contest between two all-time great sides Australia were
not quite there and West Indies were on the way down they met in the middle with immense results
There were famous moments from future giants Brian Lararsquos 277 one of the great maiden centuries turned a bore draw into a cherished memory while Shane Warnersquos flipper of the century to Richie Richardson was a big moment in his career part one of a match-winning seven-for on his home ground
The prospect of West Indies losing a series for the first time in 13 years did not impress Curtly Ambrose Few men have ever raged with such furious pride against the potential dying of a light At Adelaide he took ten wickets in one of the most amazing chapters in Test cricket Australiarsquos tailenders took them to the brink of a series win before Craig McDermott was given out to Courtney Walsh Australia had to adjust to the most alien troubling of concepts glorious failure and on Australia Day too
The deciding Test at Perth was over almost before it started Ambrose spread-eagled Australia with an outrageous spell of seven for one West Indies retained their unofficial world title and Australia were left to wonder if they would ever know such riches
England 2 South Africa 1 1998This was cricket as noir rugged hard-boiled and with a devastating twist when South Africa the unwitting patsies ended up losing a series they might conceivably have won 4ndash0 The contest meant an abnormal amount to both sides England wanted their first win in a five-Test series for nearly 12 years South Africa their first series win in England for 33
South Africa were a borderline lbw decision away from going 2ndash0 up ndash ldquoThatrsquoll dordquo thought Allan Donald as the ball thudded into Angus Fraserrsquos pad ndash and then lost the last two Tests The first of those at Trent Bridge was famous for the duel between Mike Atherton and Donald ndash a window into the soul of two outstanding competitors and authentic tough guys There was an unspoken agreement that the match and probably the series would be decided by that clash ldquoDonaldrdquo said Wisden ldquohurled himself at Atherton like a man who had taken 24 wickets in the series and had just worked out that he could still finish on the losing siderdquo ndash and both went to places they had never been before
If Atherton was justly the star his old mate Fraser deserved enormous credit he took 18 wickets in the two England victories That included eight in the final Test a low-scoring dogfight at Headingley It was an unturnoffable mishmash of collapses over-my-dead-body defiance downright nastiness and umpiring howlers primarily from Javed Akhtar Indeed the whole series might be used to convert DRS sceptics Then again perhaps not had DRS been in place we would not have had Atherton v Donald the thing above all else that elevated this series
Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series10
Three years ago Hampshirersquos Rose Bowl staged its first Test and the weather ruined the party Britain of course is full of stiff upper lips and they donrsquot come much stiffer than this stoic couple resolutely staying put while all around have fled At least I think theyrsquore under there somewhere The blue and yellow plus the geometric pattern of modern seating make this rather pleasing ndash more so than the game which dribbled away to a dreich draw
Eagarrsquos Eye 3
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
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lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
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WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series8
For ten years the Ashes stood as the last redoubt of the five-Test series But before the boards were seduced by cricket in pyjamas there were countless classics from outside the EnglandndashAustralia duopoly Rob Smyth chooses five of the best
This summer Test cricketrsquos disciples have an unexpected reward the BCCI of all bodies have agreed for India to play their first five-Test series since 2001-02 (That West Indies won 2ndash1 tells you it was a long time ago) If Test cricket is the ultimate sporting format ndash and a vaguely persuasively case to the contrary has yet to be presented ndash then a five-Test series must be the ultimate ultimate Itrsquos not just bowlers who have a natural length pop songs are right at three minutes and films at 90 while a Test series ndash it just has to be five
Itrsquos like a fusion of the best of cinema and television Five feature-length episodes which tell wonderfully engaging stories in isolation yet which are also interwoven to reveal twists subplots rivalries and character arcs with each episode more dramatic and significant than the last It defines careers ndash lives even ndash and inspires men to do things of which they did not know themselves capable
Australia 2 West Indies 1 1960-61ldquoNeverrdquo said Wisden ldquohas it been more apparent that the game is greater than the resultrdquo This was a series bathed in goodwill from the moment the captains Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud decided to buckle their swash The five matches gave the kiss of life to Test cricket after a dull end to the 1950s ndash and the kiss of hope that sustained the romantic through an even duller 1960s
The Tied Test as close to perfection as a cricket match will ever be overshadows all But there is so much more to recall two swaggering hundreds apiece from Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai a hat-trick from Lance Gibbs and particularly the superheroism of Alan Davidson who took 33 wickets and scored 212 runs in just four Tests
There were other heart-stopping finishes as well Australiarsquos last pair of Slasher Mackay and Lindsay Kline held on for nearly two hours in the Fourth Test at Adelaide and Australia sneaked over the line by two wickets in the decider at Melbourne
After a phenomenal series ndash one that made a drum-and-bass track of even the most relaxed ticker ndash came a ticker-tape farewell with over 100000 Australians saying goodbye to the West Indians Truly the game was the thing For once it was not trite to say there were no real losers It started with a Tied Test and in a sense ended with a tied series
West Indies 2 Pakistan 1 1976-77This might be Test cricketrsquos best-kept secret The stories of two West Indies series in the mid-1970s ndash away to Australia and England ndash are regularly taught on the cricket history curriculum yet this Pakistan encounter remains largely untold All that most people know are the more memorable details such as Colin Croftrsquos eight for 29 or West Indies conceding a then-record 68 Extras in an innings
West Indiesrsquo eventual victory was significant in their rise to world domination as it cemented their belief in the tyranny of fast bowling They found the last two parts of their first great pace quartet with Croft and Joel Garner sharing 58 wickets in their debut series Pakistanrsquos star was Wasim Raja a fearless counter-attacker who walloped 14 sixes still unsurpassed in any Test series
The First Test see-sawed violently and ultimately came down to the last-wicket pairs Pakistanrsquos added 133 in the second innings aided by many of those record-breaking Extras before West Indiesrsquo held
The magic number
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 9
on grimly for a draw Croft brutalised Pakistan to win the Second The tourists overcame a huge first-innings deficit to draw the Third and won the Fourth at a canter after one of the great all-round captainrsquos performances from Mushtaq Mohammad who went into the game in dreadful form but scored a century and took eight wickets
The momentum was seemingly with Pakistan but West Indies ignored that to win the deciding Test comfortably with Gordon Greenidge scoring 100 and 82 A formidable team were coming together and it would be more than a decade before they were properly tested on their own patch ndash again by Pakistan the one team who consistently stood up to them during their world domination
England 1 Pakistan 2 1992Reverse-swingrsquos greatest summer was shiny on one side thanks to the blinding brilliance of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and seriously abrasive on the other The enmity between England and Pakistan has never been greater Wisden said it was ldquoas eventful as any tour of England there has beenrdquo When the Pakistanis returned in 1996 ldquono tour ndash save perhaps the Australiansrsquo first after Bodyline ndash can have needed more delicate handlingrdquo The prequel of the 1992 World Cup final sparked a mutual mistrust adding enormously to a contest already a compelling study in contrasts Englandrsquos honest endeavour against Pakistanrsquos naked talent
Opposites infract England thought Pakistan were ball-tampering Pakistan thought Englandrsquos umpires were cheating Aqib Javed got shirty over a jumper at Old Trafford And when Graham Gooch was appallingly reprieved despite being clearly run out at Headingley the offending image reportedly appeared on buses in Pakistan
A limited England aided by a horse called Mallender did well to hang in the series for so long but it was right and proper that Pakistan should win Stumps toes and front pads will never be under as much threat as they were that summer Wasim and Waqarrsquos new-fangled old-ball threat was like nothing anyone had seen
The pair were Kryptonite when the ball was reversing not only for tailenders but also middle-order batsmen new to the crease In five different collapses across the series England lost 31 wickets for 133 runs Some of the batsmen cried foul Thankfully the abiding memory of the summer is of the shiny side the unprecedented genius of two men who made sure the old ball would not shut up
Australia 1 West Indies 2 1992-93One of the joys of success is that once-painful memories become warmly remembered rites of passage This series so traumatic at the time for Australia can now be viewed as an essential part of their rise to greatness By 1994-95 when they dethroned West Indies they were too good so this is the closest Test cricket has come to a contest between two all-time great sides Australia were
not quite there and West Indies were on the way down they met in the middle with immense results
There were famous moments from future giants Brian Lararsquos 277 one of the great maiden centuries turned a bore draw into a cherished memory while Shane Warnersquos flipper of the century to Richie Richardson was a big moment in his career part one of a match-winning seven-for on his home ground
The prospect of West Indies losing a series for the first time in 13 years did not impress Curtly Ambrose Few men have ever raged with such furious pride against the potential dying of a light At Adelaide he took ten wickets in one of the most amazing chapters in Test cricket Australiarsquos tailenders took them to the brink of a series win before Craig McDermott was given out to Courtney Walsh Australia had to adjust to the most alien troubling of concepts glorious failure and on Australia Day too
The deciding Test at Perth was over almost before it started Ambrose spread-eagled Australia with an outrageous spell of seven for one West Indies retained their unofficial world title and Australia were left to wonder if they would ever know such riches
England 2 South Africa 1 1998This was cricket as noir rugged hard-boiled and with a devastating twist when South Africa the unwitting patsies ended up losing a series they might conceivably have won 4ndash0 The contest meant an abnormal amount to both sides England wanted their first win in a five-Test series for nearly 12 years South Africa their first series win in England for 33
South Africa were a borderline lbw decision away from going 2ndash0 up ndash ldquoThatrsquoll dordquo thought Allan Donald as the ball thudded into Angus Fraserrsquos pad ndash and then lost the last two Tests The first of those at Trent Bridge was famous for the duel between Mike Atherton and Donald ndash a window into the soul of two outstanding competitors and authentic tough guys There was an unspoken agreement that the match and probably the series would be decided by that clash ldquoDonaldrdquo said Wisden ldquohurled himself at Atherton like a man who had taken 24 wickets in the series and had just worked out that he could still finish on the losing siderdquo ndash and both went to places they had never been before
If Atherton was justly the star his old mate Fraser deserved enormous credit he took 18 wickets in the two England victories That included eight in the final Test a low-scoring dogfight at Headingley It was an unturnoffable mishmash of collapses over-my-dead-body defiance downright nastiness and umpiring howlers primarily from Javed Akhtar Indeed the whole series might be used to convert DRS sceptics Then again perhaps not had DRS been in place we would not have had Atherton v Donald the thing above all else that elevated this series
Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series10
Three years ago Hampshirersquos Rose Bowl staged its first Test and the weather ruined the party Britain of course is full of stiff upper lips and they donrsquot come much stiffer than this stoic couple resolutely staying put while all around have fled At least I think theyrsquore under there somewhere The blue and yellow plus the geometric pattern of modern seating make this rather pleasing ndash more so than the game which dribbled away to a dreich draw
Eagarrsquos Eye 3
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 9
on grimly for a draw Croft brutalised Pakistan to win the Second The tourists overcame a huge first-innings deficit to draw the Third and won the Fourth at a canter after one of the great all-round captainrsquos performances from Mushtaq Mohammad who went into the game in dreadful form but scored a century and took eight wickets
The momentum was seemingly with Pakistan but West Indies ignored that to win the deciding Test comfortably with Gordon Greenidge scoring 100 and 82 A formidable team were coming together and it would be more than a decade before they were properly tested on their own patch ndash again by Pakistan the one team who consistently stood up to them during their world domination
England 1 Pakistan 2 1992Reverse-swingrsquos greatest summer was shiny on one side thanks to the blinding brilliance of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and seriously abrasive on the other The enmity between England and Pakistan has never been greater Wisden said it was ldquoas eventful as any tour of England there has beenrdquo When the Pakistanis returned in 1996 ldquono tour ndash save perhaps the Australiansrsquo first after Bodyline ndash can have needed more delicate handlingrdquo The prequel of the 1992 World Cup final sparked a mutual mistrust adding enormously to a contest already a compelling study in contrasts Englandrsquos honest endeavour against Pakistanrsquos naked talent
Opposites infract England thought Pakistan were ball-tampering Pakistan thought Englandrsquos umpires were cheating Aqib Javed got shirty over a jumper at Old Trafford And when Graham Gooch was appallingly reprieved despite being clearly run out at Headingley the offending image reportedly appeared on buses in Pakistan
A limited England aided by a horse called Mallender did well to hang in the series for so long but it was right and proper that Pakistan should win Stumps toes and front pads will never be under as much threat as they were that summer Wasim and Waqarrsquos new-fangled old-ball threat was like nothing anyone had seen
The pair were Kryptonite when the ball was reversing not only for tailenders but also middle-order batsmen new to the crease In five different collapses across the series England lost 31 wickets for 133 runs Some of the batsmen cried foul Thankfully the abiding memory of the summer is of the shiny side the unprecedented genius of two men who made sure the old ball would not shut up
Australia 1 West Indies 2 1992-93One of the joys of success is that once-painful memories become warmly remembered rites of passage This series so traumatic at the time for Australia can now be viewed as an essential part of their rise to greatness By 1994-95 when they dethroned West Indies they were too good so this is the closest Test cricket has come to a contest between two all-time great sides Australia were
not quite there and West Indies were on the way down they met in the middle with immense results
There were famous moments from future giants Brian Lararsquos 277 one of the great maiden centuries turned a bore draw into a cherished memory while Shane Warnersquos flipper of the century to Richie Richardson was a big moment in his career part one of a match-winning seven-for on his home ground
The prospect of West Indies losing a series for the first time in 13 years did not impress Curtly Ambrose Few men have ever raged with such furious pride against the potential dying of a light At Adelaide he took ten wickets in one of the most amazing chapters in Test cricket Australiarsquos tailenders took them to the brink of a series win before Craig McDermott was given out to Courtney Walsh Australia had to adjust to the most alien troubling of concepts glorious failure and on Australia Day too
The deciding Test at Perth was over almost before it started Ambrose spread-eagled Australia with an outrageous spell of seven for one West Indies retained their unofficial world title and Australia were left to wonder if they would ever know such riches
England 2 South Africa 1 1998This was cricket as noir rugged hard-boiled and with a devastating twist when South Africa the unwitting patsies ended up losing a series they might conceivably have won 4ndash0 The contest meant an abnormal amount to both sides England wanted their first win in a five-Test series for nearly 12 years South Africa their first series win in England for 33
South Africa were a borderline lbw decision away from going 2ndash0 up ndash ldquoThatrsquoll dordquo thought Allan Donald as the ball thudded into Angus Fraserrsquos pad ndash and then lost the last two Tests The first of those at Trent Bridge was famous for the duel between Mike Atherton and Donald ndash a window into the soul of two outstanding competitors and authentic tough guys There was an unspoken agreement that the match and probably the series would be decided by that clash ldquoDonaldrdquo said Wisden ldquohurled himself at Atherton like a man who had taken 24 wickets in the series and had just worked out that he could still finish on the losing siderdquo ndash and both went to places they had never been before
If Atherton was justly the star his old mate Fraser deserved enormous credit he took 18 wickets in the two England victories That included eight in the final Test a low-scoring dogfight at Headingley It was an unturnoffable mishmash of collapses over-my-dead-body defiance downright nastiness and umpiring howlers primarily from Javed Akhtar Indeed the whole series might be used to convert DRS sceptics Then again perhaps not had DRS been in place we would not have had Atherton v Donald the thing above all else that elevated this series
Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series10
Three years ago Hampshirersquos Rose Bowl staged its first Test and the weather ruined the party Britain of course is full of stiff upper lips and they donrsquot come much stiffer than this stoic couple resolutely staying put while all around have fled At least I think theyrsquore under there somewhere The blue and yellow plus the geometric pattern of modern seating make this rather pleasing ndash more so than the game which dribbled away to a dreich draw
Eagarrsquos Eye 3
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series10
Three years ago Hampshirersquos Rose Bowl staged its first Test and the weather ruined the party Britain of course is full of stiff upper lips and they donrsquot come much stiffer than this stoic couple resolutely staying put while all around have fled At least I think theyrsquore under there somewhere The blue and yellow plus the geometric pattern of modern seating make this rather pleasing ndash more so than the game which dribbled away to a dreich draw
Eagarrsquos Eye 3
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
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BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 11
From the Archive Wisden 1987
Hammonds Sauce Works Band playing in front of the Football Stand was the indisputable success for England during a match which India won by a resounding margin in under three and a half days This victory their first in England outside London gave them a decisive 2ndash0 lead in the three-match series Summing up Englandrsquos performance the chairman of selectors Peter May said ldquoWe were outplayed in every departmentrdquo
It could be argued that there were extenuating circumstances For the first time since 1978 England took the field without either Botham who was suspended [for three months after admitting he had smoked marijuana] or Gower [sacked as captain after the First Test] who after practising on the Wednesday withdrew to nurse a shoulder injury Furthermore Gooch Englandrsquos third player with pretensions to world-class had an unlucky but poor match Whatever the reason England a summer tapestry in 1985 were ragged around the edges and coming apart at the seams one year later It was an unhappy start to Gattingrsquos term as captain
First use of a quickly deteriorating pitch was to prove vital and India won the toss John Lever recalled at the age of 37 as the swing and seam expert to take advantage of Headingleyrsquos known idiosyncrasies made a surprisingly nervous start conceding 18 runs in his first two overs and then 31 in seven Pringlersquos steadying influence was needed somewhat sooner than his captain might have anticipated By the time Srikkanth paid his usual tax on impetuosity India were 64 off twenty overs To dismiss Gavaskar who entered the match with a Test average of 51 was a bonus Shastri and Vengsarkar added 53 in nineteen overs and the latter went on to demonstrate his dominance of this series Fifth out at 203 for 61 he batted for seven minutes over three hours while each partner in turn struggled at the other end
India resuming at 235 for eight batted for 112 overs on the second morning the late-order batsmen frustrating Englandrsquos bowlers while adding 37 more runs Englandrsquos batsmen were similarly inconvenienced falling immediately into trouble With Chetan Sharma injured India had sent for Madan Lal the professional for Ashton in the Central Lancashire League and the veteran of 38 Tests quickly demonstrated his mastery and experience of English conditions providing support for Kapil Dev and inspiration for Roger Binny Slack was bowled second ball Gooch was caught at gully off a ball from Kapil that kicked and Chris Smith groped ineffectively at one that came back considerably Either side of lunch (41 for four) Gatting and Lamb were the first victims in a spell by Binny that brought him four wickets for 17 in 37 balls When Athey surprisingly low at No 6 turned Binny for two the crowd cheered an England score of 74 for eight relieved that the follow-on figure had been passed
Indiarsquos first-innings lead of 170 looked unbeatable until Englandrsquos bowlers learned to enlist the unpredictable surface Indiarsquos first three fell for 29 and they were 70 for five at the close as the seam attack revelled Lever having figures of three for nine in 28 balls Already however Vengsarkar had demonstrated on the ground that nurtured Sutcliffe Hutton and Boycott the art of batting on a bad pitch He returned on the Saturday to progress from 33 to 102 not out and prompt his tailenders into a caning of a dispirited attack As at Lordrsquos he reached his hundred in the company of Maninder Singh the No 11 Gatting almost certainly must have wished that he could have exchanged one of his six batsmen for Edmonds who
On successive days in June 1986 England were knocked out of the football World Cup by Diego Maradona and lost a Test series to India with a game to spare Derek Hodgson took a dim view of it all ndash not least the Western Terracersquos attempts to adopt the Mexican wave
The hand of RogerAt Leeds June 19 20 21 23 1986 India won by 279 runs Test debuts B N French C S Pandit
Scorecard click here
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
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THE GUARDIAN
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WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 13
Eagarrsquos Eye 4
The cause of this commotion was KP as it so often ishellip Itrsquos always worth trying to follow the ball into the crowd as you can get some great reaction shots though it can be tricky to refocus in time For the First Ashes Test of 2005 I was sitting at the Nursery End ndash that way the Lordrsquos Pavilion can form a wonderful backdrop ndash when KP drove Glenn McGrath for a straight six The MCC members in the back row donrsquot seem too worried but I reckon the terrified fellow leaping into his neighbourrsquos lap has been caught reading the paper The next frame shows that the ball did indeed hit some
had been omitted from Englandrsquos squad along with Ellison
Needing to score 408 to win more than any side had achieved in Test cricket England sought only survival But with half the playing time remaining when the innings began even that hope grew forlorn as six wickets fell for 90 runs in the 411 overs before the close on Saturday evening The Indian spinners found that the pitch was adding turn to its erratic bounce and on Monday morning only another 75 minutes were required for Englandrsquos humiliation to be completed all out in 633 overs for a total of 128 In an innings of characteristic defiance Gatting remained 31 not out
The respective wicketkeepers Bruce French in his first Test and Kiran More in his second made an excellent impression as indeed did Indiarsquos other
wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit who was playing as a batsman in place of the injured Mohinder Amarnath
The same regretfully could not be said of those spectators who tried to recreate the human wave effect by synchronised waving of the arms when Mohammad Azharuddin was batting on Friday afternoon Their mindless imitation of the football crowds at the World Cup in Mexico did not help the batsmanrsquos concentration and left Headingleyrsquos reputation as a ground for cricket lovers as much in tatters as the reputation of the England team
The attendance on the first day was disappointingly small and for the match amounted to 33850 with takings of pound229004
Man of the Match D B Vengsarkar
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
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wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series14
Back in 1973 London was the target of an IRA terror campaign and in August the Lordrsquos Test was disrupted when a caller claimed a bomb had been planted in the ground The police took the warning seriously and evacuated the stands Some of the 28000 spectators had to traipse on to the outfield and I have a photograph of umpire Dickie Bird shooing them off the square Not that everyone left their seat willingly one MCC member had hoped to stay in the Tavern Stand but I donrsquot think he was given much choice The police ndash the ground didnrsquot use private security firms in those days ndash allowed me to follow them so Irsquom glad it was a hoax In all almost an hour and a half of the Saturday afternoon was lost but West Indies still ran away with the game breezing home by an innings and 226 runs Eagarrsquos
Eye 5
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
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OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 15
From the Archive Wisden 2006
For a 17-year-old boy from Orissa 1994 was a very tough year His daily routine involved waking before sunrise and travelling 15 kilometres by bus from Cuttack to work on the railway at the small town of Kandarpur Hardly any trains stop in this forgotten corner of eastern India but someone still had to walk six kilometres along the line oil the tracks check for faults and climb dangerous heights to check the wiring
The boy would return home limp and sapped But nothing could stop him from spending the rest of the day trying to master the routine he loved best ndash picking up a cricket ball hopping in from an angular run-up and ripping off-breaks These were Kulamani Paridarsquos struggles as a Class IV employee in his first two years of working for the Indian Railways
Across the vast reaches of the worldrsquos most complex railway system other young men were doing much the same For them there was no elite support system no pre-season tour no sponsorsrsquo car The reward was a place in the Railways team that competes with Indiarsquos state sides in the Ranji Trophy Not many successful first-class cricketers face as severe an initiation as Parida And surely no successful first-class team has as frail a support system as Railways From a purely cricketing angle Railwaysrsquo journey from the brink of relegation to the national championship makes a fantastic tale Bearing in mind the background it is the stuff of legend
In December 2004 they took on Andhra at Anantapur with just four points from five league games and their key players including captain Sanjay Bangar out of form Everyone had given up hope of a semi-final spot and many were resigned to being downgraded to the Plate Group When relegation threatens other teams
players worry that they wonrsquot get as much exposure to the national spotlight When Railways faced relegation they had worries of another sort ndash no promotions in their jobs no salary increments and no improvement in their quality of life At times like these other teams are rocked by internal strife But this bunch werenrsquot just any side they were bonded by glue most cricketers can barely imagine
Most had been together for nearly a decade spending much of their time all sleeping in a dormitory at the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi They slept on creaky beds with open electrical sockets staring down at them wires and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling water seeping through the walls They had suffered through power cuts at the height of summer and couldnrsquot even dream of air conditioning They had stayed away from home for long stretches eating together in a small cafe every evening and holding chirpy get-togethers at the Sareen tea stall every morning
Whenever he was picked for India Bangar had a room booked at one of Delhirsquos smartest hotels ldquoBut instead of staying there he would come and stay with the rest of the boys at Karnailrdquo said Vinod Sharma their coach It had always been all for one and one for all Now at Anantapur they just couldnrsquot afford to slip
They did better than that With 20 overs left Andhra still had six wickets standing and a draw looked certain but the all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav conjured up a spell of four for 21 on a dead pitch helping Railways escape to victory The team had rediscovered their zest and they would now travel to Bangalore ndash second-class as usual ndash with hope There their collective efficiency reached its peak against a Karnataka side bolstered by
There is another face to Indian elite cricket a world away from IPL glitz and grandstanding Siddhartha Vaidyanathan tells the story of the 2004-05 Railways team who had to sleep in a leaky dormitory at their ground and prepare the pitch themselves yet still pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Ranji Trophy history
The runaway train
continued overleaf
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
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OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series16
Rahul Dravid The other results fell their way too The players huddled round a mobile phone for ball-by-ball updates from Gujaratrsquos match A draw in that put them into the semi-finals
This would not have been considered a surprise at the start of the season they had been in three semi-finals out of four after 40 largely barren years They won their first-ever title at the 44th attempt in 2001-02 Now they could prove that was no fluke
The Railways Sports Control Board had acquired a first-class team in 1958 Like Services representing the armed forces the sheer size of the organisation meant they had a pool of sportsmen big enough to make them competitive With a staff of about one and a half million Indian Railways are said to rank behind the Chinese Army and ahead of the British National Health Service in the list of the worldrsquos largest employers
Lala Amarnath the former Indian captain worked for the Railways (though no one asked him to oil the tracks) and he played a major role in building the side recruiting well-known names like Dattu Phadkar Budhi Kunderan and Mushtaq Ali But at first Railways were regularly thwarted by Delhi and Services in the North Zone league Things improved when they transferred to the weaker Central Zone in 1975 but still they struggled to be contenders
Part of the problem was always money In contrast to the airlines and banks who have run well-funded teams in Pakistani domestic cricket for many years Indian Railways could not easily divert funds from oiling the tracks at Kandarpur to running a prestige cricket team But in the 1990s the side threw up a nucleus of talented young players like Bangar and Murali Kartik And once Railways began doing well players who were struggling to find a place in rival first teams ndash and were also looking for jobs ndash began to make themselves available They gained men like Amit Pagnis who moved from Mumbai in 2000 ldquoI wasnrsquot making it to the Mumbai XI too oftenrdquo he explained ldquoItrsquos better to play every game for a slightly weaker side than carry the drinks for a strong teamrdquo Pagnisrsquos 98 sealed Railwaysrsquo victory over Hyderabad in the 2005 semi-final
The next day Punjab stunned Mumbai in the other semi-final The Punjab Cricket Association showered their team with 15 million rupees (about pound19000) and Intikhab Alam their coach was awarded the same amount In Delhi the Railways coach Sharma waited for his salary 11 months overdue before the team travelled to Mohali for the final
Comparing the facilities at Mohali to those at Karnail
Singh Stadium is like comparing a Mercedes to a cycle rickshaw Mohali is all affluence ndash a swanky gym world-class practice pitches a bowling machine and a state-of-the-art health club with sauna steam room and jacuzzi You can add to that a groundsman who is up to date with scientific methods of pitch preparation and an administration that has built perhaps the best junior cricket system in India
The multi-sport Karnail Singh Stadium is a throwback to the 1960s It has an eerie gym containing a stepper on the brink of collapse two dumbbells five rusty wrought-iron plates for weights and a dilapidated exer-cycle The groundsmen employed by the government have no clue about pitch preparation and the Railways players and coach take it upon themselves to tug rollers water the pitch and tend the grass Practice balls and kit You must be joking Speaking of jokes consider that the Railways board sent two non-cricket officials as representatives to the meeting where the Central Zone team for the Duleep Trophy was being picked Players like Jai Prakash Yadav have been around long enough to know that it is futile to complain ldquoNo point saying they have this and we have thatrdquo he said ldquoWe made the choice to play for Railways and we have to ultimately winrdquo
Yadav and his namesake the left-arm spinner Madan Yadav did the damage in Mohali that gained Railways first-innings lead in a drawn game that was enough to secure the title Parida the poor boy from Orissa was also an established member of the side But Madan had to spend 2004 undergoing the experience Parida had ten years earlier For most of the year he was in Bhopal repairing train wheels with massive pliers and monitoring electrical connections ndash and between whiles working on his flight spin and angle of delivery When asked about the importance of the title Jai P Yadav said ldquoClass IV employees like Madan will get a promotion and his quality of life will improve If we win it will be like our gift for those players and their familiesrdquo
And they did win Madan Yadavrsquos days with the pliers should now be behind him He was said to be earning just 5000 rupees a month (about pound60) nowhere near enough to support a family properly That should be tripled now which will at least be enough to supply the necessities if not luxuries like a car or a computer
These are the champions of India Yet for them the lifestyle of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly is just a rumour The rumour now is a little less distant than it once was
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
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wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
Eaga
rrsquos E
ye 6
Do anything outdoors in the Great British summer and rain will often intervene at some stage You might think the instant the umpires call off play would be the moment to put down the camera but sometimes you get intriguing shots such as here at Wormsley the idyllic Chilterns ground created by Sir Paul Getty In the pouring rain therersquos something forlorn about the soggy sunhat of the thatched scoreboard And the empty bench suggests spectators huddling elsewhere
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 17
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bullEngland v India Test series18
Oh this really is the classic English scene isnrsquot it Back in 1971 Test matches were the exclusive preserve of agencies such as Central Press and Sport amp General but the upside was Irsquod have the time to see some recreational cricket in beautiful countryside such as here at Tilford in Surrey Itrsquos barely changed in 40 years or more but the cars have If the colours look pretty fresh thatrsquos maybe because I spent a couple of hours on my computer improving the original Kodak colour film could be quite variable and to try to ensure I got a good batch Irsquod reserve 101 rolls at the Kodak shop in Holborn pay for one and then ask them to put the other 100 by for me Irsquod quickly take the 36 shots and drive up to the Kodak HQ in Hemel Hempstead which was the only place in the UK where the film could be developed As long as I got it in by 4pm I could pick it up the same time the next day If the colour was good Irsquod motor back down to Holborn and pay for the balance But if it wasnrsquot Irsquod have to go through the whole rigmarole again Digital certainly has its advantages
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 19
Eagarrsquos Eye 7
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
Benedict Bermange picks out some of the quirkier titbits from England and Indiarsquos long Test history
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series20
At home England have won more than half their Tests against India But itrsquos a different story in India where they have lost more than they have won
Played England India Drawn
In England 52 27 5 20
In India 55 13 15 27
Since the start of 2009 India have been almost unbeatable on their own soil but rather less convincing on their travels
India Played Won Lost Drawn
Home 25 17 3 5
Away 26 6 12 8
bull Graham Gooch scored 517 runs from the 960 deliveries he faced from Kapil Dev This is the most in Test history by any one batsman against any one bowler
bull At Mohali in the First Test of the 2001-02 series debutant Iqbal Siddiqui hit the winning run for India as a makeshift opener He never played for them again
bull On the second day of the 1936 Test at Old Trafford England took their overnight score of 173 for two to 571 for eight declared Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali then replied with 190 without loss before the close The aggregate of 588 runs remains the most scored in one day of Test cricket
bull In the Fifth Test at Kanpur in 1984-85 India (with three spinners in their side) did not take the new ball until 166 overs of Englandrsquos first innings had elapsed
bull Bapu Nadkarni recorded the extraordinary analysis of 32ndash27ndash5ndash0 in Englandrsquos first innings at Madras in 1963-64 That included 131 balls in a row without conceding a run ndash the second-longest sequence in Tests At one stage Brian Bolus and Ken Barrington failed to score for 79 deliveries
bull In Englandrsquos second innings at The Oval in 1990 Narendra Hirwani bowled 59 consecutive overs ndash the longest bowling spell in Test history He ended with one for 137
bull When Geoff Pullar was dismissed by Kripal Singh for 89 at Delhi in 1961-62 he became Kripalrsquos first Test victim from his 651st ball ndash the longest wait for a maiden Test wicket
bull In the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1979-80 Ian Botham took six for 58 and hit 114 to give England a first-innings lead He then bowled unchanged throughout the second innings claiming seven for 48 from 26 overs Expecting a turning track England had played two spinners but Derek Underwood bowled seven overs and John Emburey none
bull In the three-Test series in 1992-93 Graeme Hick was comfortably Englandrsquos leading all-rounder having most runs (315) highest score (178) highest batting average (5250) most wickets (eight) best bowling average (2525) best match bowling (five for 28) and most catches (five) India won 3ndash0
bull During the 1974 series Bishan Bedi endured a sequence in which he was dismissed three times in three balls Chris Old enjoyed bowling to him claiming his wicket with three successive deliveries ndash at Old Trafford and Lordrsquos in 1974 then Delhi in 1976-77
bull At Madras in 1981-82 Graham Gooch reached three figures with England on 126 for none His 101 constituted 801 of the total His partner Chris Tavareacute hit (if that is the right word) 35 in six hours 32 minutes
bull In the same Test Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma batted throughout the second day Their third-wicket stand of 316 remains Indiarsquos highest partnership against England The population of India was said to have risen by 75000 while they were at the crease
Benedict Bermange is the cricket statistician for Sky Sports
Dot-ball doldrums
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 21
Eagarrsquos Eye 8
Now this is one of the laziest photos Irsquove taken as itrsquos taken only a few yards from my front door in Richmond where Surrey meets London I was walking past the green one day and saw a group engrossed in what was happening in the middle so I made the most of the opportunity The standard of the cricket is probably as variable as the pitch but the proximity of The Cricketers pub ensures a good time is had by all It doesnrsquot matter a jot that therersquos no pavilion or that the scoreboard is a touch rudimentary
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series2222
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WINNER of the British Sports Awards Cricket Book of the Year
WINNER of the MCCCricket Society Book of the Year
WINNER of e Cricket Writersrsquo Club Book of the Year
lsquoFascinatingrsquo e Times lsquoExceptionalrsquo e IndependentOut now in paperback click here to buy at discount
WINNING WISDEN SPORTS WRITING
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
wwwwisdencom
OUT NOW
lsquoExtraordinary and profoundly a ectingrsquo
THE GUARDIAN
VIEW A SAMPLE
BUY NOW
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 23
On July 16 1990 I was straining to convince landlocked pupils in north-east Derbyshire of the usefulness of having a smattering of a foreign lingo But the academic year was drawing to a close A celebratory holiday feeling was abroad My wife and I had just toasted our 20-year-old marriage Ah yeshellip 1970 ndash the year of Arthur Pennrsquos Little Big Man with its fresh take on the ldquoinjunsrdquo (The following year Ajit Wadekarrsquos team would make us reappraise the subcontinental Indians too)
Five minutes to the bell and my mind was wandering Should I or shouldnrsquot I Senior staff and local parents were known to keep eyes peeled for teachers zooming first out of the car park The nine till four merchants The mark of dishonour But just this once And for what better cause
Irsquod had a soft spot for the Indians ever since 1959 when despite being outplayed they had given a West Riding street-cricket urchin a whiff of the exotic and brought a full hot dry Indian summer with them And now they were but ten miles away in action this very minute warming up against Derbyshire at picturesque Queenrsquos Park Chesterfield prior to the first Texaco Trophy match at Headingley
ldquoRight Pack away I want you out sharpish Irsquove an important appointment Anyone blocking the car park exit is dead meatrdquo No second telling was required At the first ding we were off like a shot with me in pole position Fortunately in those days there were no speed cameras and I was soon parked up and installed on a bench in the temporary stand
The scoreboard told us the county had made 235 for six from their 55 overs mainly through 115 from captain Kim Barnett But I was there for the Indians soon to be reduced to an unpromising 81 for four by a strong Derbyshire attack led by the fearsome Trinidadian Ian Bishop Indian batsmen had improved their technique against fast bowling since the debacle of Fred Trueman blowing them away in the 1950s but would the present crop be able to withstand the distinctly unsaintly Bishop
Well one of them could This was my first sight of young Sachin Tendulkar and one shot in particular marked him out as someone rather special a hook for six off Bishop that sailed over the trees at square leg He hit the winning run to finish with 105 but it was the sheer class and audacity of that one stroke that made me an instant and hugely expectant fan
I saw Sachin once more that summer in the Indiansrsquo final fixture against Michael Parkinsonrsquos World XI at the Scarborough Festival I watched the Indian team emerge from their coach one morning and half-expected the curly-haired lad to rush into a corner shop for a stick of rock instead of entering the ground with the adults The match was eventually saved by Little Big Manrsquos 108
In his review of the tour for Wisden R Mohan wrote that ldquothere should be many more Test hundreds for Tendulkarrdquo The evidence was there in one stroke at Queenrsquos Park
Ian Gray came third in Wisden 2014rsquos writing competition To enter this year click here
There was a time when Indian batsmen had a reputation for getting bullied by fast bowlers Ian Gray recalls the day he watched a 17-year-old rubbish the stereotype
Little Big ManScorecard click here
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series24
Talk about a yard of ale ndash there must have been hundreds here You might not be too surprised to learn the scene is a Saturday afternoon on Headingleyrsquos Western Terraces where attention has wandered from the entertainment in the middle (It was the 2008 Test against South Africa who won by ten wickets) I donrsquot think the English are alone in constructing these snakes but the fancy dress element ndash there are ten or so WGs sporting the bushiest of beards and yellow-and-black caps ndash probably is peculiar to these shores Part of the fun of course is baiting the poor old stewards always roundly booed for breaking things up
Eagarrsquos Eye 9
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 25
England v India QUIZ
The Maharajah of Porbandar was the official captain of Indiarsquos 1932 tour although he stood down from the inaugural Test against England as he recognised his shortcomings as a player He was said to have collected more what during that tour than first-class runs
Who is the only visiting batsman to score three Test centuries at Lordrsquos doing so for India in 1979 1982 and 1986
On Indiarsquos 1952 tour of England one batsman was in dreadful form during the Tests making just 43 runs at 614 But in the other games he crashed 1645 runs at 5875 including five hundreds three of them doubles Who was he
Which Bombay-born spinner made his Test debut against India at Edgbaston in 1996
What unique feat befell India in the 1959 Test series in England
Two Indian greats made their Test debuts at Lordrsquos in 1996 One made 131 the other 95 Who were they
Indiarsquos first Test win in England at The Oval in 1971 was set up by which unorthodox spinnerrsquos superb spell of six for 38
Which player who never scored another fifty and averaged 16 overall hit a century for India in the 2002 Lordrsquos Test
Who captained India to their first series win in England in 1971 but resigned after losing 3ndash0 three years later
Which England player part of an Australian bowlerrsquos hat-trick in 2010 took one himself against India at Trent Bridge the following year
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
5
10
9
by Steven LynchAnswers on page 29
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series26
The first time I went to a big game I didnrsquot see a thing It was raining at Lordrsquos so we gave up and went off to a nearby cinema But while this was dismaying at the time it did turn out to have one pleasant consequence Since it meant I had the rare excitement of going to my first Test twice it turned out to be a decent slice of luck
It was the summer of 1974 and I was an eager 14-year-old with the usual schoolboy enthusiasms I liked playing watching talking and dreaming cricket So when my father produced tickets for the Lordrsquos Test against Pakistan I was thrilled We caught an early train to London and sat swaying in one of those carriages with blue-upholstered compartments smelling of tobacco and cleaning fluid and with the familiar sign saying ldquoDo Not Lean Out Of The Windowrdquo above the door We journeyed from our home in the SurreyHampshire badlands to (as one did in those days) ldquoCamberley Brookwood Woking Surbiton aaaand Waterloordquo
It was a commuterrsquos journey which also involved passing mysterious signs to the line routinely known as the ldquoDrainrdquo ndash to my young mind it sounded like a sewer down which the menfolk of the Home Counties had to crawl to become something in the City Once we had thundered up the underground to Lordrsquos it felt even more like a manrsquos world serried ranks of white benches fragrant with cigar smoke beer sawdust sweat and hair tonic ndash and rain spattering on dark umbrellas Even the advertising boards that fringed the grass made the home of cricket feel like a DIY outlet garish signs for building companies central-heating systems shelving units toolkits and carpets jostled for space with placards for motoring clubs and cigarettes
After Pakistan had made 130 on the first day England scrambled their way to 270 largely thanks to a typically fighting 83 (the kind the papers liked to call ldquoimpishrdquo) from Alan Knott my fatherrsquos favourite player
Pakistan were doing better second time around but the script on the Monday was that England would have an easy target for victoryhellip and John Edrich (my favourite) would do the rest
It didnrsquot turn out like that The rain just fell and fell and after eating the last crumbs of our Enid Blyton picnic ndash pork pies apples and ginger beer ndash we drifted south into central London With no mobile phones to guide us we stopped at the first picture house we came to in Baker Street It was showing The Day of the Jackal about an elegant English assassin slipping through France with General de Gaulle in his rifle sights
Given the times we were living through ndash these were the halcyon days of industrial disputes and IRA bombing campaigns ndash this was thrilling and evocative stuff so by the time we blinked back out into the wet streets we were almost glad the cricket had been cancelled But at Waterloo we picked up an evening paper and saw to our horror that play had resumed and that Derek ldquoDeadlyrdquo Underwood had taken eight wickets including one super-hot streak of six for nine in 115 overs to put England on course for near-certain victory (Not absolutely certain because the same awful weather assassinated the entire last dayhellip)
It hurt to have missed such a shivering passage of play and in the days that followed my head spun with a confused jumble of images In my mindrsquos eye I saw Edward Fox sidling to the wicket blond and splay-footed left wrist cocked in deadly intent And was that Dennis Amiss speeding through the French countryside in a luscious blue convertible Mike Denness romancing a French comtesse in a refined hotel or Keith Fletcher limping down a Paris boulevard disguised as a war veteran leaning for support on the custom-tooled high-calibre rifle hidden in his aluminium crutches
The upshot was that two years later I journeyed up to London for my first Test all over again This time I
In the 1970s a young Robert Winder contrived two separate trips to his first Test And when the weather cleared he saw the Master Blaster dismiss England with trademark insouciance
Rain rain go away Come again another day
My First Test
Scorecard click here
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
Eagarrsquos Eye
27
went with a friend and at Waterloo we turned south to see England play the West Indies at The Oval We were junior Surrey members and had attended nets so we hugged our green booklets and went for two days It was summer 1976 the year of sunshine and the minister of drought and The Oval was parched and brown For a day and a half we watched the gamersquos newest and brightest star Viv Richards make his second double-century of the series by plundering 291 stylish and unhurried runs It was a masterclass and in case anyone thought it had been achieved on an ideal batting surface Michael Holding would soon tear Englandrsquos batting to ribbons collecting eight wickets with the playful air of a fox among chickens
I was dimly aware that there were historical resonances here I had not read C L R James or been to the Caribbean I knew nothing of Britainrsquos slave plantations in the tropics or the way cricket had been carried around the far-flung empire But I did know that Englandrsquos South African captain Tony Greig had made an embarrassing pledge to make these fabulous West Indians ldquogrovelrdquo and could see that Viv was making him eat his rash words So I was happy and proud to be there
But I was aware of a disturbing contrary emotion too It was magnificent yes but it was also (whisper it) a bit of a yawn Sun-baked over followed sun-baked over Here was a four cuffed through midwickethellip there went another eased behind square Time after time Richards settled into that perfect swaggering stance haughty
and scornful touching the peak of his cap chewing his gum rolling his shoulders despatching Underwood once again It was superb but also cold and relentless Without the element of a contest it felt more of an exhibition than a game
It taught me as cricket does several lessons I learned that ldquobadrdquo wickets were more exciting than so-called good ones I learned that low-scoring games could be more dramatic than high-scoring ones bowling sprees more startling than run-feasts and that cricket could be magic even when you missed every ball I learned ndash since the same bowler (Underwood) had been unplayable in one session unthreatening in another ndash that the weather gods ruled all I learned that I cared more for narrative excitement the gamersquos power to surprise than I did for monumental feats And I developed a mild national inferiority complex how come they had swaggering geniuses like Richards and Holding while we had grey-haired bank-manager types like David Steele
And of course I learned the importance of patience Walking out of Lordrsquos that day turned me into one of those dreadful bores who spend hours on wet cricket grounds saying as they squint optimistically at the clouds ldquoDrsquoyou know I think it might be clearingrdquo
Robert Winder former literary editor of The Independent is the author of The Little Wonder The Remarkable History of Wisden
10
The chap on the right contemplating the chocolate cake is my son Will and the girl in the blue sweater is my daughter Kate so itrsquos something of a family snap This cricket tea was enjoyed in Andover in 1985 and is the focus of an image that just shouts Englishness (though not too loudly) The lighting works well and everyone was so used to my taking photos all the time that the picture has a natural feel to it
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series28
U nusually for a Championship match in the 21st century
there was a sell-out at Headingley in early June What sold out however were in fact copies of 10 for 10 being signed by the author and Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Chris Waters His book tells the story of just under 20 overs of left-arm spin bowled by Hedley Verity and summed up in the figures 194ndash16ndash10ndash10 Verityrsquos miracle came for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 ndash and remain the best figures in all first-class cricket The signing appropriately took place during Yorkshirersquos 2014 Championship match against Nottinghamshire Click here to read a sample of 10 for 10 and here to order it
A run of the first nine leatherbound editions of
Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack (1995ndash2003) were recently auctioned by Knights in their regular Leicester sale The 1995 leatherbound limited to 100 copies sold for pound2300 while the other eight (150 copies each) fetched a combined total of pound1430 To find out more about limited-edition leatherbound Wisdens click here
Tom Koumlhler-Cadmorersquos 1409 runs for Malvern College in
2013 ndash a record aggregate for a
To celebrate the rare feast of a five-Test series between England and India our sponsors Hardys ndash the official wine of English cricket ndash are giving away two cases of their excellent wares First prize is a full case two runners-up will each receive six bottles
To enter all you need do is answer this question who took 12 wickets in Indiarsquos maiden Test victory over
England Yoursquoll find all the details ndash including the terms and conditions ndash here
The winners will be announced in the first Wisden EXTRA issue of 2015 released on February 13 All entrants must be aged
18 or over and resident in the UK Closing date for entries is February 2 2015 The
decision of the Wisden editorial team is final
school season since the start of the millennium ndash earned him the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year award In May playing a three-day game for Worcestershire against Cambridge University at Fennerrsquos he made his maiden professional hundred Koumlhler-Cadmore faced the first ball of the match bowled by Zain Shahzad a graduate of the Wisden City Cup inner-city programme
The Wisden City Cup was renamed the Lordrsquos Taverners
City Cup in 2013 reflecting the Tavernersrsquo generous funding The aim remains the same to give inner-city cricketers aged 16 to 22 in eight urban centres the chance to play competitive Twenty20 matches on good club wickets ndash and hope to lessen the English professional gamersquos over-reliance on the middle-class and privately educated Each season MCC award a place on their Young Cricketers scheme ndash giving City Cup players a clear route into first-class cricket The sixth season of the City Cup began in June For more information click here
The Wisden 150 Club founded in 2013 to mark the 150th
anniversary of Wisden continues its popular series of lunches in which
WISDEN NEWS ex-professional cricketers discuss the challenges of playing at the top level Former spinner Graeme Swann and national selector Geoff Miller were guests in the last lunch held in the Long Room at Lordrsquos on June 18 and hosted by Mark Butcher The topic for discussion was ldquoEngland Cricket Moving Onrdquo The next lunch also to be held in the Long Room will be on July 23 Find out more here
During the EnglandndashIndia Investec Test series Sky Sports
scorer Benedict Bermange will introduce a feature on A E J Collins whose 628 not out as 13-year-old in a house match at Clifton College in 1899 remains the highest score in cricket history and on Colin Blythe one of the finest bowlers of the Golden Age Collins and Blythe died in the First World War and are two of the most renowned players to appear in Wisden on the Great War edited by Andrew Renshaw Click here to read a sample
The 2015 edition of Wisden Cricketersrsquo Almanack will
include a supplementary obituary section for those whose deaths have been overlooked Suggestions for this and information on those who died in 2014 should be sent to feedbackwisdencom Many thanks for your help
Win a case of Hardys Wine
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
Do you know these men
OUT N
OW
Click h
ere t
o buy
at d
iscoun
t
WisdenEXTRA bull England v India Test series 29
This like a Chris Gayle drive sailing over the sightscreen is a long shot Still as many a bowler has pondered you can but tryhellip
What Irsquod dearly love to unearth is the identity of this group of 19 chaps who I think itrsquos safe to assume together made up a cricket club 100 years or so ago
They have looked benignly down on my desk in the Wisden offices for the past few years ever since my daughter found the print in a Basingstoke junk shop and gave it to me for my birthday
The mount on which the print sits has been cut to fit it into a frame Just visible in one corner however is a crown a fragment of a flowery typeface ndash it looks as if it might have ended ldquockrdquo ndash and the green letters ldquoOYDONrdquo I imagine that must have been the
WISDEN NEWS
QUIZ ANSWERS See page 25
1 Rolls-Royces (he made two runs)2 Polly Umrigar3 They were the only visiting team to be
whitewashed 5ndash0 by England4 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
5 Ajit Wadekar6 Dilip Vengsarkar7 Min Patel8 Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid9 Ajit Agarkar10 Stuart Broad
crest of Croydon-based photographer but I could be completely wrong
The fellow on the right whorsquos either dapper or shifty (Irsquom never sure which) the various owners of a fine titfer (and even finer tache) the studious one in glasses in the middle at the back the roueacute with a centre parting messy tie and half-smilehellip Who are they all
Does anyone have a bright ideaIdentified or unidentified therersquos a beguiling
immediacy to the image And if yoursquod like to send in a scan of a similarly old photograph whether or not you know its history we at Wisden would be delighted Send files (no greater than 5Mb please) to feedbackwisdencom and wersquoll do our best to publish one or two in the next edition of Wisden EXTRAHugh Chevallier
