As India took the field for the third Test match against England at Leeds, a historical piece of stat was dished out just before the onset of the remarkable rivalry.
Given the fact, that today is 25th August, yesterday marked India’s first Test victory on English soil as Ajit Wadekar spearheaded an incredible revolution to drub the English.
After the first two Test matches petered out to a stalemate, India seemed like a team on a mission and had some exclusive explosiveness from Farokh Engineer to pen history away from home. We will take a quick glance at the Indian contingent that scripted the first victory in Test cricket on English soil.
Openers: Sunil Gavaskar and Ashok Mankad
Both the openers were off to a dismal start in the first innings as the pair was removed for cheap with Gavaskar falling for 6 while Mankad going for 10. John Snow claimed the Master Blaster while John Price got the better of Mankad.
The second innings wasn’t something extraordinary either for both of them as Gavaskar went for a duck while Mankad was dismissed for 11. Snow claimed Gavaskar while Underwood snuffed out Mankad’s little knock.
Middle Order: Ajit Wadekar, Dilip Sardesai, Gundappa Vishwanath, Eknath Solkar, Farokh Engineer
The captain played a fine knock of 48 in the first innings before Ray Illingworth bested Wadekar with an absolute peach. He stayed unbeaten in the second innings with a decent 45, leading India to the historic victory.
Dilip Sardesai was also sublime in both the innings as he managed to garner 54 and 40 to trouble the English bowlers vehemently.
Gundappa Vishwanath couldn’t gather enough momentum in the first innings as he was removed for a duck but was successful in stitching a decent 33 in the second.
Eknath Solkar garnered a hard-fought 44 in the first innings while he was removed for a paltry single in the second.
It was the dynamic Farokh Engineer who wreaked absolute havoc in the middle order with an incredible 59 in the opening innings and followed it with an unbeaten 28 in the second.
Bowlers: Syed Abid Ali, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, Bishan Singh Bedi and Bhagwath Chandrasekhar
The bowling quarter had significant help from the all-rounders that saw them through in a nasty collision against England. The man of the hour was Bhagwath Chandrasekhar who claimed 6 wickets in the second innings to bring England down to its knees.
Venkatraghavan pulled off a couple of wickets in the second innings while Eknath Solkar chimed in with three crucial wickets, to sum up, India’s superiority.
Batting first, England piled 355 in the opening innings to which India’s response was a valiant 284. However, the Indian bowlers conjured a magical display in the second innings riding on the heroics of Chandrasekhar as he claimed six wickets to rattle England for a paltry 101. Chasing 173, India comfortably reached the required milestone, thanks to some solid batting from Engineer, Sardesai, Wadekar and Vishwanath.
