A generally young team was again sent on the tour.But unlike in 1952 when the wicket and weather conditions wereagainst them, this time the sun, out in all its glory, seemed tobe in their favour
Partab Ramchand16-Aug-2002In the midst of one of the worst-ever periods in their crickethistory, India toured England in 1959 only to end up with thekind of record team members see in their nightmares. Out of 33first-class matches, the Indians won only six and lost 11 whilenot all of the remaining 16 were honourably drawn.
A generally young team was again sent on the tour.But unlike in 1952 when the wicket and weather conditions wereagainst them, this time the sun, out in all its glory, seemed tobe in their favour. However, the batsmen again found the pace ofFreddie Trueman and Brian Statham too hot to handle.
All five Tests were lost, this being the first time that Indiasuffered such a whitewash. Incidentally, it was only the thirdtime in Test history that a team had lost all five matches. Therecord was even more unpalatable considering the fact that it wasone of the best English summers for years and that the home teamthemselves were not very confident having just been thrashed inAustralia during the winter.In fact, they commenced their rebuilding process by trying outmany new players and even then they were good enough to swampIndia. Three of the matches were lost by an innings, two defeatswere sustained inside three days and two more matches must surelyhave been concluded with two days to spare but for interferencefrom the weather.A generally young team was again sent on the tour. But unlike in1952 when the wicket and weather conditions were against them,this time the sun, out in all its glory, seemed to be in theirfavour. However, the batsmen again found the pace of FreddieTrueman and Brian Statham too hot to handle. What was even moredisconcerting was the fact that the batsmen surrendered theirwickets tamely even to lesser-known new ball bowlers like AlanMoss and rookie Harold Rhodes and also to spin bowlers like BrianClose, Tom Greenhough and Ray Illingworth.The selection of the team was made in the wake of thedisappointing five-match home series against the West Indies thatwas lost badly. For various reasons, Ghulam Ahmed, Vinoo Mankad,Gulabrai Ramchand and Dattu Phadkar were not selected and therewas a new captain in Dattajirao Gaekwad. Pankaj Roy was hisdeputy and it was obvious that the batting would revolve aroundthese two, Polly Umrigar, Vijay Manjrekar, Chandu Borde, NariContractor and Bapu Nadkarni. The bowling, meanwhile, was tohinge mainly on Subash Gupte, making his long awaited first tourof England, the medium pacers Ramakant Desai and RamanSurrendranath and the two all rounders Borde and Nadkarni.It was, then, the collective failure of both the batsmen and thebowlers that led to the rout in the Tests. The fact that onlyContractor (233) and Umrigar (230) topped the 200-run aggregatemark symbolises the batting failures. Despite arriving after hisclassic batting display against the West Indies, which saw himget 109 and 96 against Wes Hall and Roy Gilchrist in the finalTest at New Delhi, Borde was a failure getting only 140 runs inseven innings.Roy improved upon his dismal record of seven years before butstill proved to be easy meat for the pacemen, as evidenced by hismeagre return of 179 runs from ten innings. Gaekwad never reallygot going and India were further handicapped by Manjrekar playingin only the first two Tests before a knee problem ruled him outfor the rest of the tour.Fortunately, Abbas Ali Baig, a 20-year-old freshman at OxfordUniversity, proved to be a worthy replacement. At Manchester, hescored a century in his first Test, becoming the first Indian tohit a century on debut abroad. Moreover, the fact that he did soon the same ground at which Ranji had achieved a similar featagainst Australia back in 1896 added a touch of colour.Umrigar was the only other century maker in the series. He scored118 at Manchester in what proved to be his last Test innings inEngland, hooking and pulling his old adversary Trueman withgusto. But perhaps the most courageous knock was played byContractor at Lord’s when he carried on to make 81 in over fourhours despite having one of his ribs broken by a ball from BrianStatham early in the innings.The bowling failed to rise to the occasion. Gupte no doubt tookthe most number of wickets in the series – 17 – but these cost34.64 apiece. Desai was harshly treated, his 12 wickets beingobtained at an average of 50.16. The best bowler wasSurendranath. Relishing the conditions that aided his swingbowling, he finished at the top of the averages with 16 wicketsat 26.62 apiece. Nadkarni with his left-arm spinners was at beststeady while the English batsmen negotiated Borde’s leg-spinnerscomfortably.On the tour, Umrigar was again the most commanding batsman. Hegot five centuries, three of them double hundreds – one knock of252 not out against Cambridge University being the then highestscore abroad by an Indian. He ended the tour with 1826 runs andbut for a hand injury that ruled him out of the last few matcheson the tour, would surely have crossed the 2000-run mark.Gaekwad (1174), Roy (1207), Borde (1060) and Contractor (1183)were the others to cross the 1000-run mark, though given a fulltour it is safe to assume that both Manjrekar (755) and Baig(673) would have made the four-figure mark too.As far as the bowling was concerned, Gupte with 95 wicketsfinished top of the heap but considering his reputation, thefigure fell below expectations. Surendranath, given a lot of workhad 79 wickets while Borde (72) and Nadkarni (55) did reasonablywell. Desai, however, was a bit of a letdown finishing with 45rather expensive wickets.As only to be expected in a one-sided series, England had thingstheir own way. Peter May, Colin Cowdrey, Mike Smith and new boyGeoff Pullar got hundreds while Ken Barrington was a model ofconsistency. The old firm of Statham and Trueman mowed down theIndian batting repeatedly and even Greenhough’s leg spinnerscaused the visitors some trouble. Ultimately, it was bothtechnical difficulties and a lack of fighting spirit that sawIndia go down tamely.