Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe opened the batting in India's first Test a week after setting a first-class partnership record? (29 July 2002)
It is hard to assess the impact that an opening partnership of
555 runs has on a bowling attack, but one can get a good idea by
asking the Essex bowlers of 1932. Winning the toss in an away
match, Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe ripped the bowling to
shreds, with Holmes making 224 not out and Sutcliffe racing to
313 before being the first wicket to fall. Yorkshire declared
immediately, and Essex were so disheartened by the assault that
they quickly collapsed to an innings defeat.
Spectators thronging Lord's for India's first Test match just a
week later, therefore, were justified in expecting a run-glut
from Holmes and Sutcliffe - also the English openers. The
Indians, after all, were mere minnows on the international scene,
and the bowlers would undoubtedly be nervous, bowling to already
acclaimed greats.
And yet their partnership was restricted to eight runs. With the
first ball of his second over, Mohammad Nissar yorked Sutcliffe
for three, and with the last ball of the same over, he sent
Holmes's off-stump cartwheeling. England were 11 for two, and
Neville Cardus wrote that the Indians gathered around the broken
wicket "like sightseers at a celebrated ruin."
India went on to lose the Test by 158 runs, but for a few moments
at the beginning of the Test match, they were glorious aspirants
to the throne, participants who had come of age. A Test loss was
perhaps inevitable in their very first game, but each of India's
11 players would have cherished their memory of congregating
around a broken wicket.
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