Tales of intrigues 500 Tests ago are still entertaining

Team India are on the verge of playing their 500th Test match. It’s a momentous event, more so in a game that loves its statistics. The 500 Tests have taken 84 years but the thought is the next 500 could take an eternity considering there would be less emphasis on this form of the game in the years to come.

Team India will be paying a sort of homage to a format of the game with a lot of room for thinking because of the large timeframe in which it is played. The modern generations are unlikely to savour the nuances of Test cricket simply because they won’t have the time for it amid a bouquet of entertainment avenues, which can only grow in a future filed with gadgets and gizmos.

There is certain order in the way things are managed these days with the Test and ODI captains having long enough tenures to provide stability of thinking. As young Virat Kohli begins a long home season in hunt of the Test mace, he has a set of recognised players to tackle the job besides the help the famous Indian designer pitches are certain to offer. Curiously, when India began playing Test cricket, pace bowing was the strength with Amar Singh, who was said to come off the pitch like the “crack of doom” and Mohammad Nissar, who was probably a shade quicker but only in short bursts. Moreover, Indian batsmen were known to be weak in their approach to playing spin bowling.

The sea change in Indian cricket capabilities — the decline in pace bowling and the ascent in playing spin — came about soon enough.  It is not certain the intrigues in Indian cricket have come down. But compared to the early days, what happens nowadays is probably far less. Take, for instance, the first ever Test that India played. Many of the players gathered at 4 am on the morning of the first day of the Lord’s Test protesting the tour captain Maharajah of Porbander’s decision to ask C.K. Nayudu to lead. Cables went back and forth furiously to New Delhi where the gentlemen who were central to the formation of the Board of Control and who became its first president and secretary — Grant Govan and Anthony De Mello — were resident and hence the choice fell upon a “commoner” rather than king to lead India

The Maharajah of Patiala’s direction to the touring team to play under Nayudu settled the issue. The Maharajah had an immense influence on Indian cricket. He was the major power centre while the Maharajkumar of Vizianagaram was the competing one and he may have had the Viceroy of India, Lord Willingdon on his side because Willingdon had a low opinion of Bhupendra Singh. As the intrigues of the era went, Patiala won the early rounds as he was party to the formation of the board having attended the famous meeting at the Roshanara Club in Delhi and he also cleverly took over the selection of the 1932 team by offering to host its month-long trials n Patiala.

Patiala was to lead the team to England. He withdrew later and he called upon Porabander to lead with his brother-in-law Ghanshyamsinhji of Limbdi to be vice-captain while the unusual post of deputy vice-captain was offered to Vizzy and he declined stating affairs of state would keep him busy in India. Porbander was known as the rajah who had more Rolls-Royces than runs and as the Test approached he wisely decided to drop himself as captain. While Limbdi would have been the natural choice, he sprained his back making a century against the Eastern Counties and that is how the choice fell upon a “commoner” to lead India in her first Test than the rajah of a princely state.

How the Maharajkumar of Vizianagaram came to lead India on the controversial second tour of England in 1936 from which Lala Amaranth was sent home on disciplinary grounds is an equally engaging story. How the “Colonel” was made to stand down after leading at home against Douglas Jardine’s English tourists of 1932-33 is also an entertaining tale of how intrigue was part and parcel of Indian cricket in its earliest days. Not that it is totally different now, but with the advent of the IPL things have changed so much in terms of opportunity that no good cricketer goes without a chance of displaying his talent. The Test captaincy has also been a settled issue with the best man in the job now in Virat Kohli.