India vs England – testing times await

After weeks of quick-cricket, the white-ball games in which, oddly, it usually takes longer to bowl an over than in first-class red-ball cricket, Wednesday’s First Test match against India is more than welcome. 

India may have lost the World Test Match final to New Zealand, but I guess most would agree that taking everything into account, home-and-away in a variety of conditions, India are the best Test team in the world. 

After all, they won a Test series in Australia and done so with an under-strength side, after which they trounced Joe Root’s England on spin-friendly wickets in India. It would be no surprise if, in this return series, they find that some of the Test match wickets favour James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ollie Robinson.

While musing on the prospects, I have been reading an old friend, my slightly tattered 1947 Wisden, a present for my ninth birthday, with its account of the 1946 Indian touring side and the first Tests played in England since Hitler stopped play.

It was a turbulent time in India. “While the politicians at home,” Wisden observed, “argued the rights of independence, the cricketers abroad showed to the world that they could put aside differences of race and creed and join together in and off the field. These young men came as their country’s Ambassadors…and won hearts…respect and admiration…”

Twelve months after the tour ended, Independence and Partition had divided “their country”, so 1946 was the last All-India tour. India would next tour in 1952, Pakistan, the new state, in 1954. One sometimes thinks that if there had been no Partition, All-India would now be unbeatable. India’s captain in 1946 was the Nawab of Pataudi, a Muslim.

 Pataudi had previously played Test cricket for England while at Oxford University, India not then being a Test match nation. He was the third Indian Prince to play for England, and, like the other two, Ranjitsinhji and his nephew Duleepsinhji scored a Test hundred against Australia.

It was, as remarked, an eclectic party. There were at least three other Muslims: Mushtaq Ali, who had scored a Test century at Old Trafford on the previous All-India tour in 1936, Gul Mohammed and Abdul Hafeez. The last of these remained in England after the tour to study philosophy at Oxford, and as A H Kardar, played for the University and Warwickshire, before captaining Pakistan on their introduction to Test cricket – against India, in 1952. The 1946 party also included a Roman Catholic, V S Hazare, Captain of England in 1952, and R S Modi who was a Parsee.

The first full season after the war was 1946. Understandably, some of the counties were very weak. It was also a wet summer. Nevertheless, the crowds were good. On the first day of the opening match against Worcester, there were 8,000 spectators, despite the bitter cold. 

Only Bradman could have drawn a bigger crowd. When the weather was fine, India scored freely. Against Sussex, India made over 500 for three wickets, with all the top four batsmen making centuries. Wisden cautiously described this as “a very rare achievement”. Even more remarkable was a match against Surrey in which the Indian numbers 10 and 11 both scored centuries, sharing a last wicket partnership of 249.

There were only three Tests, and they were only three-day ones at that. England won the first at Lord’s by ten wickets, Nottinghamshire’s Joe Hardstaff making a double century and Alec Bedser, at the start of a great Test career, taking eleven wickets in the match. He took eleven more at Old Trafford in the second Test, which was drawn with India’s last-wicket pair holding out for a quarter of an hour. 

Incidentally, despite the rain preventing play on the first morning, 319 overs were bowled in the eight sessions of play that were possible, considerably more than a hundred a day, around 20 an hour. Joe Root and Virat Kohli, please take note. The third Test at The Oval was ruined by rain, but India’s opener, V M Merchant made a hundred.

Merchant was one of the great successes of the tour, scoring more than 2000 runs. He had toured ten years earlier when he had made a hundred in the Old Trafford Test. With a third century against England in 1950-1 and a Test career average of 47, he must be accounted one of India’s great batsman – the first great one indeed to have represented the country. (Putting it this way avoids a futile comparison with Ranji and Duleep.)

The other star of the tour was the all-rounder Vinoo Mankad, a slow left-arm bowler and belligerent bat. That summer, he did the Double, scoring a thousand runs and taking a hundred wickets. The team lacked fast bowlers, and indeed Mankad’s main support came from Hazare and Lala Amarnath, batting all-rounders. 

It didn’t help that fielding and especially close catching were poor. Sadly, this would be true of Indian sides until the younger Nawab of Pataudi became captain in the 1960s and insisted that fielding was every bit as important as batting and bowling. Kohli’s team today fields as well as any other Test Match side.

England, slowly recovering from the War, with food rationing still in place, with cold hotels and cross-country train journeys, must have been a cultural shock for at least the younger members of that touring party. The young John Arlott, just beginning his sports broadcasting career, befriended the tourists, making himself useful in practical ways. He would retain a special affection for the 1946 Indians.

By coming out of almost compete retirement, Wisden recognised that Pataudi risked “spoiling his reputation in England as a successful classical batsman”. In the event, “though he scored four hundreds, was third in the batting averages, and at times gave evidence of his former superlative skill, he was but a shadow of the Pataudi England knew so well, and he did little in the Tests..”

Wisden has never been in awe of reputations or ready to mince its words, even if a failure to match previous deeds is usually reported as much in sorrow and disappointment as in condemnation. Captains, beware. Both Kohli and Root have reputations as successful classical batsmen, displaying “superlative skill”.

That said, Test series now follow so hard on Test series, that one poor series doesn’t blight a reputation as used to be the same. The elder Nawab of Pataudi played no more Test cricket after this 1946 tour. Indeed, I doubt if he played more than the occasional match again.