England brush aside Azharuddin for a shock series win
Partab Ramchand - 17 December 2001

The England team that landed in India for the 1984-85 tour came with no high hopes. With the self-imposed absence of Ian Botham and the recent retirement of Bob Willis during the series against West Indies in the summer (in which England suffered a unique 'blackwash’), it was at best an average side, and captain David Gower was aware that taking on India in this country was no easy task. After all, the English had been victorious in only two full campaigns in this country out of seven.

Fortunately there were no alarms during the Test and no further political troubles on the tour, though the itinerary had to be hastily revised.Given the circumstances, it was a creditable performance by England to win the five-match series by a 2-1 margin. What was more, they became the first team to come from behind to triumph in India.

As if the cricketing equations being unequal were not enough, the England squad got more than they bargained for from events off the field. Within a few hours of their arrival in India, they were awoken with the news of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The memory of this was still fresh when, on the eve of the first Test less than four weeks later, the British Deputy High Commissioner Percy Norris, a cricket lover who had entertained the touring party at a reception at his Bombay home just the previous evening, was shot dead as he was being driven to his office. Both outrages took place within a mile or two of where the team was staying.

Because of the riots that followed Mrs Gandhi’s assassination, the visitors were largely confined to their hotel rooms. New Delhi was an uneasy place to be in for some time, but fortunately the Sri Lankan Cricket Board made a generous offer to the touring team to come over to Colombo for play and practice, which would have been impossible in India during the period of official mourning.

The British diplomat’s murder affected the team members personally, and with a Test due to start the next day, it was inevitable that they felt under threat themselves. There was some talk of calling off the tour, but after talks between England manager Tony Brown, Indian Cricket Board officials and Test and County Cricket Board officials, and following advice from the Foreign Office, it was decided that the tour should go on, based on the calculated guess that there was no connection between the timing of the murder and the team’s presence in Bombay.

Fortunately there were no alarms during the Test and no further political troubles on the tour, though the itinerary had to be hastily revised.Given the circumstances, it was a creditable performance by England to win the five-match series by a 2-1 margin. What was more, they became the first team to come from behind to triumph in India. The visitors had been badly beaten by the Under-25 side and then went down in the first Test by eight wickets. Honours seemed to be even in the second Test at New Delhi going into the final day, but a shocking Indian collapse opened an avenue for England to draw level with an eight-wicket victory, ending their record sequence of 13 matches without a win. The defeat led to signs of disharmony within the Indian camp, the shock omission of Kapil Dev for the first time in his career, and a sudden change in the fortunes of both teams.

After a dull draw in the third Test at Calcutta, another shoddy batting display by the Indians ­ this time in the first innings ­ saw England take the fourth Test at Madras by nine wickets. And with the final Test at Kanpur always likely to end in a draw, that was how the series ended. For good measure, England also took the one-day international series 4-1.

It may seem ironic after all this that the performances of the series were from the Indian side. But the uniqueness of Mohammad Azharuddin’s feat of scoring centuries in each of his first three Tests assured this. The Hyderabadi stylist was hailed as the most exciting batting discovery since Sunil Gavaskar. Consistent batting was also seen from Mohinder Amarnath, Ravi Shastri and Dilip Vengsarkar, while Syed Kirmani was among the runs late in the order. Gavaskar though had the worst series of his career, scoring only 140 runs at the unbelievable average of 17.50. This, and the failure of Sandip Patil to come good, cost the Indians dearly.

The bowling too was pretty ordinary. Teenage prodigy L Sivaramakrishnan won the first Test with a bag of 12 wickets and became the second Indian bowler to take six wickets in successive innings. But once he was mastered after the second Test, the attack was pretty stingless. England’s main strength was their batting. Perseverance paid off, as Mike Gatting proved by getting his maiden Test hundred in his 54th innings. The best player of spin bowling in the side, he added a double century at Madras, where he and Graeme Fowler became the first pair to score double centuries in the same innings for England in 610 Tests since 1877. Gatting ended with 575 runs at an average of 95.83, while Fowler had 438 runs at an average of 54.75. Tim Robinson, with his obdurate methods, proved to be a thorn in the flesh, scoring 444 runs at an average of 63.42, including a monumental 160 in eight-and-a-half hours at New Delhi.

The success of the trio covered up for the comparative lack of form shown by Allan Lamb and David Gower. Little was expected from the bowling, and a line-up of Norman Cowans, Richard Ellison (or Neil Foster), Peter Pocock, Phil Edmonds and Chris Cowdrey had a lean look about it. But at crucial stages, Pocock and Edmonds (at New Delhi) and Foster (at Madras) proved to be match-winners, and Gower joined Douglas Jardine and Tony Greig as the only England captains to lead England to victory in a series in India.

© CricInfo

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