The last time England faced an Indian captain at home as aggressive as Virat Kohli was in 1963-64 when Tiger Pataudi led. Mike Smith, the studious double international (he played rugby too) led England. Both captains had been to Oxford, with the Englishman beating the Indian’s record by making three hundreds in three Varsity matches. All five Tests were drawn. Basically because, Pataudi said later, neither side was able to bowl the other side out twice “on the wickets we were given.”
Pataudi himself was not a certainty in the team — he had been given charge initially for only two Tests. Then he was asked to undergo tests to ensure that his damaged eye was not affecting his batting. Pataudi demurred, and the authorities changed their mind. Pataudi finally led in all five Tests, won the toss every time, and made India’s first double century against England.
Kohli will have none of those problems. His leadership is well established. He has the bowling, spearheaded by Ravi Ashwin, to get a team out twice on home pitches .
The last time England were here, they recovered after losing the first Test because Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar made better use of the pitches than India’s spinners. But in the four years since, Swann has retired and Panesar has faded away, while Ashwin has emerged as the leading bowler in the ICC rankings.
Words like “whitewash” are being casually thrown around since England’s last Test ended in a defeat in Bangladesh, with a 19-year-old off-spinner bowling them out in a single session of play in Mirpur.
There is something about an England team visiting India that stirs fans in a manner no other tour does. The West Indies at their best with their fast bowlers and attacking batsmen set the heart pumping as much in fear as in anticipation; Australia always sent their best team, and were admired for their sheer toughness. But England were different. Till the 1990s, they seldom sent their best team. Thus Trueman and Statham, May and Laker never played Tests here. The ones who did come wrote about the terrible conditions of stay and travel; it became a vicious cycle.
Improved conditionsAll that changed after India’s unsubtle rise as the powerhouse of the game in the 1990s. To be fair, the conditions had improved immeasurably too. Travel and stay — which didn’t seem to affect the Australians as much — were no longer bugbears.
The crowds may have thinned a bit, and fans may not have worshipped later players as profoundly as they did the earlier generations — India took players like Tony Greig and Derek Randall — but now no one dropped out for “personal” reasons.
It wasn’t just the judgement of conditions, sometimes the judgement of players too went spectacularly awry. On India’s first tour of South Africa, England’s coach Keith Fletcher had flown out there to check out Kumble before the England visit to India that was to follow. Nothing to worry about, was Fletcher’s verdict, he does not turn a ball. Kumble claimed 21 wickets, and England lost all three Tests in that 1992-93 series. England’s chairman of selectors gave two remarkable reasons for the defeat: the smog in Kolkata, and the prevalence of facial hair among the English players. A quarter century later, Indians are still trying to work that out. That chairman was Ted Dexter who, smog apart, had a special relationship with Kolkata. His wife Sue was born there, the daughter of Tom Longfield who led Bengal to their first Ranji Trophy win in 1938-39.
Dexter’s side was the first to lose a series in India, in 1961-62. Since that series, India always felt they held the upper hand at home despite two serious setbacks to this line of thinking. In the mid-70s, with the spinners Bishan Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar at their peak, the Greig-led England won 3-1. Then on their last tour they beat India 2-1, a loss which was even more difficult to take since by then India had been the No.1 Test side and were considered virtually unbeatable at home.
In 1984-85, within a few hours of David Gower’s team landing in India, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated, and the anti-Sikh violence was unleashed. Sri Lanka’s President who had come for Mrs Gandhi’s funeral gave the England team a ride back to his country in his plane and the visitors had the luxury of practice and play away from the turmoil in India.
If that trip gave the team a glimpse into a violent political India — the British Deputy High Commissioner and cricket-lover Percy Norris was shot dead in Mumbai on the eve of the first Test — the current one might provide another lesson in civics through judicial India. The Supreme Court’s final ruling against the BCCI is expected in the course of the tour. England, who begin their tour under one set of office-bearers might well end it under another.
