As India and West Indies gear up for another Test series and are set to play the 100th Test of this rivalry in Trinidad, here is a look back at the heroics of Dilip Sardesai in 1971, who in many ways set the tone for the series, which was subsequently dominated by Gavaskar.
“It was the tea break on day one of the first Test, and Dilip Sardesai was batting extremely well to drag us out of trouble,” recalled Gundappa Viswanath. “After losing the first five wickets for just 75, it was the partnership between Sardesai and [Eknath] Solkar that changed things and lifted the gloom in the dressing room. While we were all feeling a little down at the loss of the first five wickets, this partnership was proof of what was possible. And that’s when Sardesai stepped out of the change room, looked at the ground and declared that these West Indian fast bowlers were nowhere close to [Wesley] Hall or [Charlie] Griffith. There was something in this statement and the manner in which it was said. Here was someone who was batting beautifully, and had already managed to steer India out of trouble. Now he was telling us in the dressing room with his usual swagger that the bowling was mediocre, and we had nothing to fear. It had the impact of giving every player the buoyancy they needed.”
A tour to the West Indies was all about playing fast bowling. In 1962, India had been blown away by the fast bowlers, mostly Griffith and Hall, and with Nari Contractor, the captain, suffering a debilitating blow to the head, which eventually cost him his career, things were dire from the very start of the tour. Team morale, in the aftermath of the injury, reached rock bottom. Mentally, the team had succumbed and just wanted the series to end. Anyone who has watched the documentary, ‘The Test’, can well imagine what it may have been like in 1962. In 2019, with all the protective gear, the Australian dressing room was in panic when Steve Smith lay flat on the pitch at Lord’s having been hit by a Jofra Archer delivery. David Warner, in panic, walked up to Justin Langer, the coach, and mentioned that Smith had been hit in the exact same spot as Phil Hughes, who died in the most tragic circumstances in 2014. You could die while playing the sport is what ‘The Test’ drove home. In 1962, things were 20 times worse. There was no protective gear and medical treatment was primitive when compared to modern-day options. It was no surprise that the Indian team lost 0-5 in the aftermath of the Contractor injury.
“When your captain is struggling for life in hospital, there is very little you can do,” said the late Madhav Apte, while speaking on the West Indian dominance in 1962. Apte, a real gentleman, tried explaining how hard it must have been for Contractor. “I played very little for India, but can tell you it was hard when I was left out of the team,” said Apte. “And here Nari was the captain who had just won a home series against England. All of a sudden, he had to come to terms with the realisation that he would never play the game again. Imagine what impact it had on him and the team.” Despite a few individual acts of brilliance (Umrigar scored a brilliant hundred for example), India was never able to compete against the likes of Hall and Griffith. Sardesai, who was a part of the 1962 side, had seen it all from close quarters. He had experienced defeat, and knew what India needed to do to turn the tide. The challenge was to take the fast bowlers on, and that’s what Sardesai did in Jamaica in 1971.
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“When a senior player tells you that none of the fast bowlers were express pace and we could tackle them with ease it helps a great deal,” said Viswanath. Most importantly, Sardesai walked the talk. In partnership with Erapalli Prasanna, he flayed the West Indian bowling to all parts of the ground and made a statement to every member of the team. When he was eventually out for a career-best 212, India had achieved two things. First, they had recovered from the slump and had scored a very respectable 387 in their first innings. Second, and perhaps more important, was the newfound belief that the West Indies fast bowlers weren’t invincible. This one innings completely changed things in the Indian camp and by the time the West Indians stepped out to bat, there was an eagerness to take control of the game. “With the first day washed out and with us having scored 387 in the first innings, there was little chance of us losing the game,” said Viswanath. “On the contrary, we had everything to play for when the West Indies batted.”
“Sardesai batted beautifully in this Test match,” said a rather jovial Clive Lloyd as we sat down to speak about that series at the Grande Hotel in Central London, with the majestic St. Paul’s in the background.. “He looked in control under pressure and that one innings, like I have always told you, changed Indian cricket forever. It was proof that the Indians were no pushovers, and all of a sudden had put us under pressure. Never had India taken a first-innings lead against us and we needed to bat really well to keep this record intact. His double-hundred meant we had to bat well to stay in the game, and it was a tough ask against the Indian spinners Bedi, Prasanna and Venkat.
“We were proud cricketers, and that’s why if anyone says to you that the Indians were just lucky in 1971, it is plain nonsense. We played hard and, in 1971, they played better. You must give them the credit they deserve.”
With the entire first day washed out without a ball being bowled, the start of the series on the second day couldn’t have been more dramatic. Sent in on a moist wicket, India lost the first wicket with the score on 10 and the second on 13, exposing the middle order very early into the game. When Wadekar was out with the score on 36 and Durrani and Jaisimha followed with the score on 66 and 75, the West Indies, Lloyd said, “hoped to bowl the Indians out for 150 or thereabouts.” However, Sardesai, Solkar and then Prasanna first managed to tire the bowlers out, and thereafter launched a serious counterattack, which shifted the momentum in India’s favour.
With a big score behind them, the Indian spinners were brilliant right through and had Prasanna not strained a muscle in the West Indian second innings, India could have won the game. “The injury happened at a very important moment in the game,” recalled Prasanna. “I was bowling well and could have won the game for the team.” However, what the Indians did do was enforce the follow-on for the first time in the history of India-West Indies cricket.
“It had turned into a four-day game and according to the rules, we needed a 150-run lead to ask the West Indians to bat again,” said Viswanath. “Once they were all out for 217, Ajit informed us that he was going to ask Sir Gary to bat again. When he walked across to the West Indies dressing room to convey the message, Sir Gary felt Ajit was joking. He refused to believe we could enforce the follow-on with a lead of 160 and only when he was reminded of the rule did he realise what Ajit was asking him to do. This is what we wanted. It was a statement and we had managed to dent West Indian self-esteem.”
Enforcing the follow-on was a telling commentary on what the Indians had achieved. Never before in Test cricket had India managed to secure a first-innings lead against West Indies, and here they had forced West Indies to bat again in the very first Test match of the series in Jamaica. Even though the West Indians came back strong in the second innings with Kanhai scoring an unbeaten 158 and Sobers 93, India had secured a massive boost going into the second Test in Trinidad. The match may have been drawn, but India emerged with the bragging rights.
First, the media rhetoric, which had been hostile to start with, had changed dramatically. John Foster, who had been extremely critical of Sardesai and his poor running between the wickets, was now singing high praise for the veteran. In a piece titled ‘Superb Sardesai’, Foster wrote, “Sardesai and Sabina Park. That’s the association the Jamaica cricket fans will always hold whenever Indian cricket is discussed in this island. The Bombay batsman’s magnificent double-century boosted India’s prestige after the earlier batsmen had cut a sorry figure.”
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