The first win abroad

India entered the international Test arena in 1932. It took them nearly 20 years to win a Test – the first win coming against the Nigel Howard-led England team at Madras, India’s victorious captain being Vijay Hazare.

A win abroad, however, eluded India for long. From 30’s to 67 – 68, Indian cricket followers of India’s tours to England, Australia, the West Indies just prayed for a draw. The 50’s saw India touring Pakistan and playing dull draws, both sides being too afraid of losing.

It was to change for India in the 1967-68 series against New Zealand. The Indian team was led by “Tiger” Pataudi and had Prasanna, Bedi, Nadkarni and Borde as very capable spinners.

The question was, on the green seamer friendly pitches of New Zealand, did the Indian quicker bowlers (Ramakant Desai, Rusi Surti, Umesh Kulkarni & Abid Ali with support from the medium pace of Jaisimha and Subramanya) have the firepower and skill to get the better of Dowling’s men?

The first Test started on February, 15, 1968, at Carisbook.

Graham Dowling and Bevan Congdon, the two best batsmen of New Zealand got amongst the runs and put on 155 for the second wicket.

With Mark Burgess chipping in with a half-century to add to a fine 143 by the skipper, New Zealand ended up a healthy 350.

Abid Ali was outstanding for India – 4 for 26 off 15 overs.

India started off well with Abid Ali and Engineer seeing off the early pace and movement of Dick Motz and Bruce Taylor and when Abid Ali fell, Wadekar and Engineer put on 79 for the second wicket.

Surti, Pataudi, Bordle, Desai and Bedi all got 20’s and 30’s but two major factors in India getting a slender 9 run lead – not substantial by any means but psychologically important, were Wadekar’s 80 and the 57 run 10th wicket partnership between Desai (32 n.o.) and Bedi (22).

The second innings saw Prasanna in top form.

He had remained wicketless in 37 overs in the first innings. Now he proceeded to repay the confidence of his captain. Murray, Congdon, Yuile, Motz, Taylor and Harford were sent packing by him.

His six for 94 in 40 overs on a pitch not offering assistance to finger spinners, gave India a chance to win their first Test on foreign soil.

Needing to make 199, India lost Abid Ali early but Wadekar was in excellent nick. He followed up his first innings knock of 80 with a polished 71 in the second with support from Surti (44) and Engineer (29), India won by five wickets.

Those were the days when no Man of the Match awards were given. Had there been one, it would have surely gone to Ajit Wadekar for his batting in both the innings but Prasanna would have run him close.

Prasanna didn’t have the “Doosra” that Saqlain and Harbhajan have, he didn’t have a “floater” that Fred Titmus had but he had tremendous control on flight and spin - he was the old type, conventional off-spinner whose talent was well recognised by Pataudi who preferred him to Venkat, the less flighty but more accurate off spinner.

For most of his cricketing years as captain, Pataudi struggled in terms of having good new ball bowlers.

He converted adversity into opportunity and used his spinners as attacking weapons, giving them slip, silly point, forward short leg and backward short leg.

Bedi, Prasanna, Venkat and Chandra got more batsman out bowled, lbw and caught close in than in the deep.

When at Carisbrook, Pataudi went in with three spinners – Bedi, Nadkarni and Prasanna, not many would’ve fancied India winning through them but these three between them took 11 wickets in the match to give India a 1 – 0 lead in the series.

More was to come from their fingers through the four Test series.

Nadkarni finished with 14 wickets at 17.93 runs per wicket, Bedi with 16 at 23.19 runs and Prasanna with 24 at 18.79 runs to help win the series 3 – 1.

The confidence derived from this series was immense as many of these players played vital roles when India beat the West Indies and England on their soil a few years later.

The leader when that happened was Ajit Wadekar – the top run getter for India in the 1968 series with 328 runs at an average of 46.86.