Summer of 42 and its aftermath

[Gollum]

Our previous lowest total, 1974 Lord's, at least Eknath Solkar managed double digit score, 18* including one six. Not one Indian batsman reached double figures in Adelaide. 

 

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India’s tour of England in 1974 had descended into chaos after the Lord’s debacle. Then India captain Ajit Wadekar had described the dressing-room atmosphere “funeral-like”. In the aftermath, the Indian team was asked to leave from the High Commissioner’s place, where they had gone for dinner. Sunil Gavaskar has narrated the whole incident in his book Sunny Days.

Opener Sudhir Naik was accused of shoplifting. There had been reports of dressing-room discord. India were clean-swept in the three-Test series and upon their return, Wadekar found himself axed from the West Zone team, and never played for India again.

In Indore, fans defaced the Victory Bat, which was erected after India’s first-ever Test series wins in the West Indies and England in 1971. Tiger Pataudi returned to lead the Indian team in the following home series against the West Indies, in which India fought well but went down 2-3.

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New Delhi, December 20: A Monday and Saturday separated by 46 years and a few months. Indian cricket felt humiliated at Lord's on June 24, 1974 and one couldn't escape that feeling on December 19, 2020. It was 42, the lowest Indian total back then against England, and it's 36, the new low that Indian cricket hit on the day against Australia. On that day, the Indian innings terminated at 9 down with B S Chandrasekhar being "absent hurt". On Saturday (December 19), it was Mohammed Shami, who had to retire hurt. That Thursday saw Geoff Arnold get four and Chris Old snap five in an inspired spell of swing bowling on a green top at Lord's.
This Saturday had Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins give a display of quality seam bowling on a bouncy track. "I don't have any recollection of that match. Just that we played badly and dukh bhari baatein yaad karne ka kya faayda (what's the use of remembering something that hurts so much)," Madan Lal, who was a part of that match, told PTI reluctantly. One can't blame him for not wanting a recollection. But what exactly went wrong on June 24, 1974 during those 17 overs? There couldn't be a better and exhaustive reference than Sunil Gavaskar's seminal autobiographical work "Sunny Days". Here are some of the dismissals on that day. "Arnold started with two huge outswingers followed by an inswinger that hit (Farokh) Engineer on the pads as he played forward...(Ajit) Wadekar was bowled by Old and Vishwanath was out to a beauty which (wicketkeeper Alan) Knott snapped in front of first slip. "(Brijesh) Patel got one that lifted and brushed his glove on its way to the wicket-keeper." Gavaskar, with his brilliant sense of humour, described his conversation with Eknath Solkar, who had hooked an Old bouncer for six. "At the end of the over, Solkar came down the wicket to ask me to stay and help him save the game. That was not to be as I was leg before to an Arnold break-back," he wrote. "By the time I removed my leg guards, Madan (Lal) and Abid (Ali) had joined me in the pavilion. And before you knew it, we were all out for 42. England had won the Test by an innings and 285 runs and with that the series." Over the last five decades, there have been multiple theories about the 'Summer of 42' but what exactly did Gavaskar think about that debacle?
"Lots of theories have been advanced about our being skittled out for a paltry 42 runs when on the same wicket England made 629 and India 302 runs. "The simple answer is that Arnold and Old bowled five good balls which got our top five batsmen out. After that there was no resistance from the tail-enders. We were skittled out before lunch and champagne was flowing in the English dressing room to celebrate England's victory in the series." For all those who love anecdotes, that wasn't the end of India's miseries as there was more public humiliation in store for the team and especially late skipper Wadekar at the Indian High Commissioner's residence in heart of London. Gavaskar, in his book, recalled the incident which added to an already ruined evening where a few players had an altercation with journalists at a previous function with threats from scribes. "'We will see that these chaps are brought down. What do they think of themselves?'" Gavasakar quotes the scribes. "By the time we got into the bus (from the previous function), it was already 6:30pm, the time we were supposed to be present at the High Commissioner's party." "Our coach got delayed in the traffic and we reached the entrance of the Kensington Gardens around 7pm. The entrance was too narrow for the big coach to go in and all of us had to get off and rush past a few houses until we came to the High Commissioner's residence... "...When Ajit had gone in, we were still in driveway of the house. By the tine we reached the porch, Ajit was returning looking crestfallen and grim. When we asked what the matter was, Ajit replied: "He (High Commissioner) has asked us to get out."
The manager Lt. Col Hemu Adhikari was literally in tears as he "ordered the boys" to get back as everyone felt insulted and didn't want to go back. After some persuasion, they did relent. "The High Commissioner embraced Ajit and apologised for losing is temper...," recalled the maestro. The 42 all-out happened in the second Test and India lost the next in Birmingham to lose the series 0-3. Wadekar was sacked from captaincy and dropped from not only the national team but also the West Zone side. Unable to take this frontal humiliation from the BCCI, Wadekar announced his retirement from all forms of cricket.
It was a forgettable Monday in 1974 that no one saw coming. Just like the Saturday (December 19), when Kohli was at his wits end to explain what exactly went wrong.

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[Gollum]

1971 under Wadekar we won test series in WI, Eng. Yet sacked from captaincy, dropped from not just national side but also West Zone and he retired at the age of 33. 

 

Next major tour after this disaster was to NZ where we famously drew a 3 test series against peak Hadlee. Then went to WI and chased 400+ in Port of Spain, lost the series in controversial fashion after a beamer barrage against our tail. 

 

We were much weaker in the 70s but at least there was some accountability, a semblance of pride. Wadekar led his side to test series wins against full strength WI, Eng in their backyards, with home umpires. 

[Gollum]

Summer of 42 to humiliation in Adelaide - Engineer looks at the problems

 

Nauseating feeling when I remember that Lord’s debacle: Abid Ali

[SK_IH]

There is no accountability for sure. WC 2007 debacle was the last any thing productive came out of debacle. There was backlash & clamours for sure both in the establishment as well as media. 

 

 

[MechEng]

55 minutes ago, Gollum said:

1971 under Wadekar we won test series in WI, Eng. Yet sacked from captaincy, dropped from not just national side but also West Zone and he retired at the age of 33. 

 

Next major tour after this disaster was to NZ where we famously drew a 3 test series against peak Hadlee. Then went to WI and chased 400+ in Port of Spain, lost the series in controversial fashion after a beamer barrage against our tail. 

 

We were much weaker in the 70s but at least there was some accountability, a semblance of pride. Wadekar led his side to test series wins against full strength WI, Eng in their backyards, with home umpires. 

 

Commercialization of the game has resulted this. Right now along with too much money, there is too much cricket as well, and don't forget the role of the internet, way too many distractions.

 

There used to be a time when JAMODIs did not exist because countries toured India once in 4 years and we toured foreign nations once in 4 years as well. So amount of cricket was moderate and every series was memorable, for example Jayasuriya's 189, which would be otherwise thought of as a JAMODI today because Guptill, Rohit and others have made scores bigger than that with ease.

 

Also BCCI can arrange West Indies bilateral series anytime they want to, making the game money oriented.

 

We just played IPL before touring Australia, it wasn't like this before. A tour to Australia was treated like the olympics event with the same amount of nervousness, and practice games against Prime Minister's XI were well planned.

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by MechEng

[MechEng]

Also, yoyo tests and deadlifts can never substitute cricket skills.

 

You can be the strongest or fittest person alive but if your footwork is out of place or your bowling length is not right, you will be exposed. Moderate fitness with advanced cricket skills over athletes for test match performace any day. 

[Serpico]

51 minutes ago, MechEng said:

Commercialization of the game has resulted this. Right now along with too much money, there is too much cricket as well, and don't forget the role of the internet, way too many distractions.

Internet also made it easy for PR agents to astroturf cricket forums and sites and control the narrative. And the cricket media is filled with people sucking up to stars to get clicks from the fans.. back in the day newspapers probably didn't care about revenue from cricket fans that much. They just set the narrative as it is, if team sucked they will highlight how the team sucked. These days as soon as match is over dozen cricket sites and "analysts" are ready with a dozen excuses and damage control

[Lone Wolf]

59 minutes ago, MechEng said:

Also, yoyo tests and deadlifts can never substitute cricket skills.

 

You can be the strongest or fittest person alive but if your footwork is out of place or your bowling length is not right, you will be exposed. Moderate fitness with advanced cricket skills over athletes for test match performace any day. 

You think these YOYO tests & everything has made team a better fielding side..  Tell you what India is worst fielding side in the cricket atm.  In every series whether in Tests or limited overs we are dropping so many catches.   I am watching Indian fielding regressing badly since 2016 T20 WC.  

 

[MechEng]

2 minutes ago, Lone Wolf said:

You think these YOYO tests & everything has made team a better fielding side..  Tell you what India is worst fielding side in the cricket atm.  In every series whether in Tests or limited overs we are dropping so many catches.   I am watching Indian fielding regressing badly since 2016 T20 WC.  

 

 

Ground fielding is great but taking catches is a reflex thing and is not dependent on fitness. Some overweight cricketers in VVS Laxman, Inzamam Ul Haq and Sehwag had very good catching skills.

Edited December 21, 2020 by MechEng

[MechEng]

23 minutes ago, Serpico said:

Internet also made it easy for PR agents to astroturf cricket forums and sites and control the narrative. And the cricket media is filled with people sucking up to stars to get clicks from the fans.. back in the day newspapers probably didn't care about revenue from cricket fans that much. They just set the narrative as it is, if team sucked they will highlight how the team sucked. These days as soon as match is over dozen cricket sites and "analysts" are ready with a dozen excuses and damage control

 

Internet has created more avenues for pastimes for people and more ways for cricketers to make money too, the resultant of which the popularity of sport is in decline in India.

[kirkutfan]

India has a decent team, but not a great one. On lively pitches, we have Kohli and Pujara as our test caliber bats. Rest- up and down. On top of that, we have no real cushion. We have good bowlers, who can’t bat- so no viable tail ( our batsmen can’t bowl either, so no margin there too). So really, if you get Kohli and Pujara out on the cheap, this team is ripe for getting dismissed for a low score. On the other hand, if Kohli and Rahane didn’t have that run out episode, Kohli might have gotten us to a big score in the 1st inning and we would have overlooked these problems and talked about how we are world beaters ( just see cricinfo articles at the end of day 2). Anyway, “36” just exposed the downside of having a team like ours. I just hope that we don’t make it a personal issue with the players. The way people treated that “42” team , or for that matter the WC 2007 team was not right. They just played a bad game on day 3. They have had and will have other days that are better than that. BCCI needs to be objective and figure out how to better prepare our players for these tours, and how to avoid us from being overly dependent on the form of 1 or 2 players. Vengsarkar’s idea of sending Dravid over is nuts.  But, I think our coaching staff has had a long run and at the end of this series- it is time to consider making a change by bringing in people who have new and hopefully better ideas. 

[Vilander]

8 hours ago, MechEng said:

Also, yoyo tests and deadlifts can never substitute cricket skills.

 

You can be the strongest or fittest person alive but if your footwork is out of place or your bowling length is not right, you will be exposed. Moderate fitness with advanced cricket skills over athletes for test match performace any day. 

Should aim for people with good footwork who are fit. Moderate fitness lead to poor ground fielding cant go back to that. 

Edited December 21, 2020 by Vilander

[Vilander]

Its obvious cricket as a game in in decline in terms of popularity and even in India. Cant help it people won't get very worked up for this.

[DeepSpace]

We had some accountaility in the old days, but starting with Dhoni there has been no such thing. Now Kohli is hell bent on taking it to the next level. The drunkard is earning crores just sitting on his butt, doing nothing and getting wasted every night.

 

Shambolic state of Indian cricket.