da esport bet： The sudden departure of Sidhu- the most senior member of the touringparty, having made his Test debut in 1983 – put a big question markover the vital opening slot
Partab Ramchand10-Sep-2002The morale of neither England nor India could have been particularlyhigh on the eve of the 1996 three-match Test series. While India’shome record was awesome, their record abroad was nothing to boastabout. England too, with a series of setbacks both at home andabroadm, could not have been very confident. Predictably enough, then,the series was marked by much mediocre cricket with just a fewhighlights.
The sudden departure of Sidhuthe most senior member of the touringparty, having made his Test debut in 1983 – put a big question markover the vital opening slot. In his absence, various pairs – VikramRathour and Ajay Jadeja in the first Test, Rathour and Nayan Mongia inthe second, and Mongia and Sanjay Manjrekar for the third – were triedout, but none came good.
The most dramatic event of the tour took place off the field. In asensational development, veteran opening batsman Navjot Singh Sidhujust packed his bags and left for home, saying that he had been”ceaselessly humiliated.” This was after he had been dropped for thethird and final one-day international. Sidhu had also played in twofirst-class matches. It was reported that he had serious differenceswith skipper Mohammad Azharuddin.Opinion on this incident was sharply divided. Given Sidhu’s soft andstudious nature, it was believed that he would not have taken theextreme step unless he had a very valid reason. The other school ofthought was that whatever the provocation, Sidhu should have stayedbehind, for after all he was representing the country and should nothave allowed personal misunderstandings to cloud his decision.The sudden departure of Sidhuthe most senior member of the touringparty, having made his Test debut in 1983 – put a big question markover the vital opening slot. In his absence, various pairs – VikramRathour and Ajay Jadeja in the first Test, Rathour and Nayan Mongia inthe second, and Mongia and Sanjay Manjrekar for the third – were triedout, but none came good. Under the circumstances, the Indian battingwas always under pressure, and full credit must be given to SachinTendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid for rising to the occasionin the second and third Tests after the first at Birmingham had beenlost by eight wickets.Ganguly’s batting in fact was the major highlight of the series. Therewas an outburst of criticism over his selection, but taking this inhis stride, the stylish left-hander from Bengal let his bat do thetalking. He made his debut in the second Test at Lord’s in storybookfashion, becoming the first Indian to hit a century in his first Testat cricket’s historic headquarters. Overall, he was the 10th Indian toperform the feat.Going in at number three, Ganguly faced 301 balls for his 131, hitting20 fours. For good measure, he got 136 in the next Test at Nottingham,figuring in a record third-wicket partnership of 255 with Tendulkar(177). This time Ganguly showed his penchant for big hitting, cloutingtwo sixes and 17 fours. He also became only the third batsman to hitcenturies in his first two Test innings, after Lawrence Rowe and AlvinKallicharran. By the end of the series, the man whose selection hadprompted howls of protest headed both the Test and tour averages. Inthe Tests he finished with 315 runs at an average of 105.00, while inthe first-class matches, he amassed 762 runs at an average of 95.25.As if all this were not enough, he also headed the bowling averageswith six wickets at 20.83 apiece. The legend of the Prince of Calcuttawas born.Dravid was not far behind. By contrast, his selection had been widelywelcomed. He started off with 95 on his Test debut at Lord’s andfollowed it up with 84 at Nottingham, and it was obvious that Indiahad discovered two young batsmen who were, in racing parlance, stayersrather than sprinters. Events over the last six years have only servedto confirm this view. Dravid finished third in the Test averages with187 runs at 62.33, while in first-class games, he aggregated 553 runsat an average of 50.27.Tendulkar lived up to his reputation. He made a masterly 122 in alosing cause at Birmingham. This was one of the finest knocks of hiscareer, for he struck 19 fours and a six over 177 balls, while noother batsman even got to 20; Manjrekar’s 18 was the next-best score.Coming in at 17 for two after India faced a first-innings deficit of99, Tendulkar was ninth out at 208.The effort was in vain as England went on register the only victory ofthe series. He followed this up with his second century of the seriesat Nottingham. Tendulkar, who was named among Wisden’s cricketers ofthe year, scored 428 runs in the series at an average of 85.60 tofinish second to Ganguly in the averages. He was second to Ganguly inthe tour figures too (707 runs at 64.27).The batting of Ganguly, Dravid and Tendulkar helped cover up thewretched form of Azharuddin, who scored just 42 runs in five inningsat an average of 8.40. Little went right for him as far as batting andleadership were concerned, and at the end of the tour, Tendulkarreplaced him as captain. Manjrekar too failed, getting just 105 runsat 26.25, although he did fairly well in the first-class games scoring540 runs at an average of 41.53. Rathour was another batsman whoscored heavily on the tour (805 runs at 47.35), but he came a cropperin the Tests, being reduced to 46 runs at 11.50.Like the batting, the bowling too presented problems. Too muchdepended on opening bowlers Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad, andto their credit both shouldered the heavy responsibilities admirably.Srinath took 11 wickets at an average of 39.36, while Prasad, who madehis Test debut at Birmingham, was the bowler of the series, taking 15wickets at only 25 apiece. He also headed the tour figures with 25wickets at 29.36 each.India’s leading spin bowler Anil Kumble was a sore disappointment, hisfive wickets costing him 66.80 apiece – the first indication thatKumble overseas was not the master bowler he was at home. On the tourhe did little better, as his figures of 13 wickets at 56.84 willreadily testify. The support from Paras Mambhrey, Venkatapathy Raju,Narendra Hirwani and Sunil Joshi was painfully inadequate.England for their part were quite happy at emerging narrow victors inthe series. Batting was their forte, as exemplified by totals of 313,344 and 564 in successive Tests. Nasser Hussain got two hundreds,skipper Michael Atherton and wicket-keeper Jack Russell hit one each,while Graham Thorpe was a picture of consistency. Seam bowling wastheir trump card, and Chris Lewis (15 wickets at 23.73), Alan Mullally(12 at 24.83) and Dominic Cork (10 at 36.90) did their job inexemplary fashion. England also won the three-match one-day series2-0. Even in the tour results, the Indians did not have a record towrite home about. Out of 11 first-class games, the tourists lost twoand drew nine.