Reliving the glory days

This book stands out for its erudite examination of the beginning of India's cricketing triumphs.

Not many might be aware that the Indian team which travelled to England for only their second series ever in 1946 frequently faced shortage of food. While World War II was partly to blame, players were unhappy with the BCCI’s indifference in attending to their basic needs.

"Finally, the imminent possibility of death by starvation was averted after an appeal was made in the press for help," chronicles the book 1971: The Beginning of India's Cricketing Greatness, by senior Kolkata-based sports writers Boria Majumdar and Gautam Bhattacharya.

From this sorry situation, Indian cricket has amassed such unimaginable riches that the current team spent a three-week all-expenses paid vacation this summer, between the WTC final and the first Test against England.

Food shortage, and other such largely unpleasant instances of parochialism and the Raj culture, set the tone for the book that is a serious attempt at celebrating, as its title says, the successive series wins in the West Indies and England in 1971 under the late Ajit Wadekar, which truly heralded the onset of India's growth as a cricketing force.

India had posted their first overseas win in New Zealand in 1967-68 itself under MAK Pataudi, but what's undeniable is that the 1971 success was magical. While New Zealand have always been formidable at home — bear in mind, India have won one only series there subsequently — victory against them didn't stir the emotions quite like after wins over West Indies and England.

Epochal moment

The book stands out for its deep research, while interviews with those from the 1971 team and other former players make for an interesting read.

The twin series wins together formed an epochal moment in India's cricket history while also heralding the beginning of Sunil Gavaskar's greatness as he plundered 774 runs in his debut series against Windies, despite missing the first of the five Tests due to a swollen finger.

The build-up to the Caribbean tour was anything but pleasant. Wadekar was named the captain ahead of Pataudi, leading to a huge controversy. Then chief selector Vijay Merchant used his casting vote to break the deadlock and pave the way for Wadekar's appointment. This didn't go down well with many players, including G R Viswanath, who admits in the book that he was taken aback by the move. The backstory goes that Merchant, one of India's finest batsmen, had been denied the same honour by Pataudi's father, the senior Nawab using his connections with the Raj to appoint himself to the post.

"It remains a matter of conjecture whether Merchant hadn't fully forgotten the humiliation of 1946 and if, in 1971, he felt it was payback time..." says the book, leaving the readers to draw their own conclusion.

While this incident had the potential to derail India's campaign, the controversy surrounding Viswanath's injury, on which the batting stalwart clears the air and the team's kit missing for two days upon landing in Kingston, only added to the woes. Viswanath missed the first two Tests with a knee problem.

Despite these issues dogging the team in one of the most hostile cricketing lands at the time, India dominated the drawn first Test at Sabina Park where the hosts had to face the ignominy of following-on. This perhaps had a debilitating impact on the psyche of the Garry Sobers-led West Indies, who went on to lose the second Test, which proved to be the series decider.

The book dwells in detail on the obvious differences between an installed skipper and some key players, but remarkably for those times, they all pulled in one direction.

New batting heroes

If India found two batting heroes in the Mumbai duo of Gavaskar and Dilip Sardesai (642), S Venkataraghavan topped the bowling charts with 22 scalps. Wadekar chose the Tamil Nadu offie over the peerless E A S Prasanna for the subsequent series in England, with leg-spinning magician B S Chandrasekhar returning to the fold. Ahead of the team selection, Pataudi declared himself unavailable, solving a major headache for the selection committee.

Chandrasekhar turned out to be the trump card of the series, claiming six wickets in England's second innings on The Oval turf. India won the match and the three-match series (1-0) to create history.

The Pataudi-Merchant saga casts an inevitable shadow over the two series. To draw some perspective, only Sourav Ganguly, sacked as captain, and then chief selector Kiran More's feud is somewhat comparable to the cold war between Merchant and Pataudi, though it was far less dramatic.

The account of the two series ends with an epilogue linking them with India's successive series wins in Australia — in 2018-19 and 2020-21. The first, under Virat Kohli, was India's maiden conquest of Australia, 71 years after they first travelled Down Under. The second, under Ajinkya Rahane who took over after the first Test following Kohli’s return home on paternity leave, is arguably India's finest away Test series victory. If 1971 was the beginning of India's greatness, 2020-21 only cemented that legacy. It's a fine conclusion to a well-argued book.