There
was a time, when the name brought ‘awe’
to their opponents – hard hitting openers, great batsman – and more than anything
else, battery of pace-bowlers, who put fear in the minds and bloods in the shirts
of opposition batsmen – the team called ‘West Indies’.
To
shake hands or not to shake hands is perhaps not the most important
conversation Sarfraz Ahmed will have this week as Australia plays Pakistan in
Tests. But to Tim Paine and this new Australia, as they move on from that era
to this, what Paine called, "bit of a new one", it is slightly more
important. The two teams will shake hands before the Test begins, it was
decided in a conversation between the two captains in between their press
conferences that lasted about as long as a good, sturdy handshake. Sarfraz was
slightly bemused by the request, asking only when and how it would happen ?
At
Rajkot today, the great West Indies procession ended with their
heaviest Test defeat against India, by an innings and 272
runs. It took India under 100 overs to bowl them out twice in their
third straight three-day defeat in India. Fourteen of the 20 wickets fell in
two sessions and a bit on the third day. The pace at which the batsmen kept
going back to the pavilion prompted India to enforce the follow-on. In the
follow-on innings, Kuldeep Yadav benefited, becoming only the seventh player to
register five-fors in all three formats of international cricket.
Only
Kieran Powell managed to resist, scoring an attacking 83 off 93, but even this
innings was built more on luck than a method in the initial stages. To his
credit, Powell hardly made a mistake once he was past the early high-risk shots
that managed to evade fielders. The day began with West Indies resuming at 94 for 6. Despite
streaky devil-may-care batting from Roston Chaseand Keemo Paul, India took the
four wickets well before lunch, making the follow-on decision easy after having
bowled West Indies out in 48 overs.
The
India – WI rivalry at home started way back in Nov 1948; the first 3 tests at
Delhi, Mumbai & Calcutta were drawn but in Jan 1949, India lost by an
innings & 193 runs at Chennai. The first
ever victory over WI was to come in Dec 1974 at Calcutta, followed by that
Pongal test win in 1975 at Chepuak. In
that 4th test on Jan 1949, WI batting first made 582 with AF Rae and
JB Stollmeyer making centuries. Dattu
Phadkar took 7/159. Indians were bowled
out for 245 – Rusi Modi making 56; following-on, they wre all out for 144 –
Vijay Hazare making 52.
There were 2 debutants in that Madras test – Madhusudan Rege, a right handed opener, who
played that solitary test. Earlier, in
Ranji he had scored 133 and 100 for
Maharashtra against Bombay and before long was representing India against West
Indies at Madras. He scored 15 and 0, falling to Prior Jones both times. The other debutant was Nirode Chowdhury, the
first Test cricketer from the state of Bihar, a slightly-built but lively medium-paced
off-spinner who played one Test for India in 1948-49 and another one three
years later. He was picked to tour England in 1952 but hardly figured in a
match.
Uttarakhand
opener Karn Veer Kaushal became the first batsman to score a double-century in the
Vijay Hazare Trophy, hitting 202 off 135 balls in a Plate Group match against
Sikkim today. The previous highest score
in the Vijay Hazare Trophy was Ajinkya Rahane's 187 for Mumbai against
Maharashtra in Pune in 2007-08. Kaushal accelerated steadily during his
innings, reaching 50 off 38 balls, a century off 71 balls, 150 off 101 balls
and his double-century off 132 balls.
In
case you do not know, Vijay Hazare
Trophy named after Vijay Hazare, is a limited overs domestic competition, also known as the Ranji One Day Trophy, started
in 2002–03 as a limited-overs cricket domestic competition involving state
teams from the Ranji Trophy plates. Tamil
Nadu has won the trophy 5 times. Karnataka are the current champions of the
trophy in 2017-18 who won their 3rd title beating Saurashtra in the finals.
With
regards – S. Sampathkumar
6th
Oct 2018.
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