Indian cricket team in England in 1971

The Indian cricket team toured England in the 1971 season and played 19 first-class fixtures, winning 7, losing only one and drawing 11.

India played three Test matches and surprisingly won the series against England 1–0 with two Tests drawn. This was India's first ever series win in England. The First Test at Lord's and the Second Test at Old Trafford were drawn. India pulled off a historic win in the Third Test at The Oval by 4 wickets after being 71 behind on first innings. They bowled England out for only 101 in the second innings with Bhagwat Chandrasekhar claiming 6–38.

The Indian team was captained by Ajit Wadekar. Besides Wadekar and Chandrasekhar, the team included other notable players in Dilip Sardesai, Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan, Gundappa Viswanath, Bishan Singh Bedi and the young Sunil Gavaskar. Farokh Engineer, who had a contract with Lancashire, was made available for the Tests and a few other matches.

Background

With South Africa out of Test cricket, England was arguably the best cricket team in the world at this point of time. Earlier in the summer, they had fortuitously managed to defeat Pakistan 1–0 but coming into the series England had gone 24 Tests without defeat. They were to extend it to a record 26 Test matches before losing the third Test.

India had not won a Test abroad till 1968 and had had no success in their previous six Test tours of England. However, under the new captain Ajit Wadekar, India defeated West Indies in an away series in early 1971. The victory in that series was built around the batting of Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Sardesai who scored 774 and 642 runs respectively. Chandrasekhar had been a controversial omission from the West Indies series. Chief Selector Vijay Merchant called his inclusion for the tour of England "a “calculated gamble"”.

Touring party

* Ajit Wadekar (captain)
* Srinivas Venkataraghavan (vice-captain)
* Abbas Ali Baig
* Abid Ali
* Bishen Bedi
* Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
* Farokh Engineer
* Sunil Gavaskar
* D. Govindraj
* K. Jayantilal
* Syed Kirmani
* Pochiah Krishnamurthy
* Ashok Mankad
* Erapalli Prasanna
* Dilip Sardesai
* Eknath Solkar
* Gundappa Viswanath
* Hemu Adhikari (manager)

M. L. Jaisimha, Salim Durani and Rusi Jeejeebhoy were excluded from the team that toured West Indies.

Test series

First Test

''You may be too young to remember, but in 1971, during a Test match, I collided with England fast bowler John Snow and lost my bat. Snow picked it up and handed it to me. But at the time, many papers wrote that Snow had flung the bat at me. It all depends on your point of view, or what you are trying to portray.... – Sunil Gavaskar'
Picture

The England fast bowler John Snow rescued the England first innings when he came in at 183/7 and made 73 to hoist the total up to 304. This was Snow's highest Test and joint-equal highest first-class score, but he was disappointed not to realise his boyhood dream of a century at Lord's when he was caught off a B. S. Chandrasekhar googly. India needed 183 to win in the fourth innings when Snow had the opener Ashok Mankad caught by Alan Knott for 8 and India were 21/2 when Sunil Gavaskar was called for a quick single after hitting the ball to mid-wicket. Snow went for the ball and knocked him over, "I could imagine the horror on the faces of everybody watching the game from the committee room at Lord's". They were both uninjured and continued with the game, and Snow tossed Gavaskar's bat back to him. A similar incident had happened in Georgetown in 1967–68 with Clive Lloyd, but the 5'5" Indian received far more sympathy than the 6'4" West Indian who knocked Snow to the ground. From afar the incident had looked much worse and was replayed repeatedly on slow-motion television. A media furore ensued and with press demanding disciplinary action. The replay can be seen in the Indian episode of the BBC
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