T' was " ONE " on " ONE -ONE ", February 1973 some 48 Years Ago :: The Instance Only " ONE "

Picture - : Bhartiya Cricket Nirantar Aprajit Rahay :: The Victory " BAT " At Indore

T' was " ONE " on " ONE -ONE " some 48 Years Ago :: The Instance Only " ONE "

It happens once, remarked somebody once….. it happens once said somebody once….. and it happened for once in the last century.

It was the date February 11th 1973. The Test match between India and England at the Brabourne Stadium was on....

No sooner the last ball of the match was bowled and the match got over…….

“ INDIA WERE FOR THE FIRST TIME , WERE , " UNOFFICIALLY " RECOGNISED AS THE WORLD CHAMPION OF THE TEST MATCH CRICKET ” . It happened on this date after the Brabourne Test match between India and England got over in 1973.

During that period and at that point of time we did not have like at present that we possess, any system of judging the team in terms of World Champion in cricket.The number of series played abroad and the VICTORIES and the number of times a team beat the other when it played against ONE-ANOTHER were taken into account and that determined the position of " NUMERO - UNO " in Test matches.

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Please also read the article titled We Were “ NOT ” That " WORST " A Team Whom Anybody Could Get Us Out For “ 42 ” : Ajit Wadekar inserted during the month of December 2020 . It makes an interesting reading .

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India had won " THREE " series abroad. India for the FIRST time in her Test history had won a series at abroad , against New-Zealand under Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi when they defeated New-Zealand by 3-1. That was in 1968. It then beat the West-Indies by 1-0 at west - Indies and then it beat England by 1-0 at England . Thus India had created a " HAT - TRICK " of Test series win at abroad . Over it India here at India thereafter immediately in the series 1972-73 beat England by 2-1.

" THIS FOUR VICTORIES WEIGHED THE SCALE IN FAVOUR OF INDIA TO BE CHRISTENED AS THE UNOFFICIAL WORLD CHAMPION THEN " .

The last Test of that series was played at Bombay at the Brabourne Stadium then.

This match had certain bullet points which are worth highlighting-:

Pic - :: Tony Greig Cradling Gundappa Vishvanath after he reached his century , 2nd of his career .

1). For the SECOND time in the history of Indian Test cricket, posters and placards were put all over the stadium which read as NO DURRANI, NO TEST.

2). Gundappa Vishvanath scored his second century to break a hoodoo of scoring yet another Test centurt after a century on his test debut.

3). B.S.Chandrashekar had claimed 35 test wickets in the entire series. This still stands as the most and the highest number of wickets claimed by any Indian bowler in a full fledged single test series.

4). At that time when Vishvanath scored/got his century, Tony Greig ran upto him and lifted him, infact craddled him and kissed him on the cheek. This was for the FIRST time a kiss was planted on any cricketer on his cheek by another test cricketer in the annals of Indian cricket. Before that twice and after it once the cricketers were planted the kiss on their cheek. The first to receive the honour was Abbas Ali Baig in the Test match against Australia at the Brabourne,in 1959-60, the second was M.L. Jaisimha and the third was Brijesh Patel at Wankhede stadium against the West-Indies in 1975. However the donors were the ladies spectators watching the Test match.

4). For the FIRST time , in the annals of Indian Test cricket, all the batsman from the second positon to the fifth position got their fifties. Engineer got a 121, Wadekar a 89, Durrani scored a 73 and Vishvanath scored a 113. All of them got their runs in the first innings.

5). For Salim Durrani this proved to be his last Test match. He scored a 37 in the second innings.and bowed out of the Test match. He played 29 test matches for India. He also scored a 73 in the First innings in that match .

6). This was the last Test match played by India at the Brabourne in the last century.

7). B.S.Chandrashekar after the completion of the First Test at Delhi which India had lost in the series, became the first bowler in the annals of Indian cricket to capture 9 or more than nine wickets on a back-to-back basis, however in TWO different series. He claimed 9 (Oval, 1971>>>>>( 3+6) and 9 (8+1) at Delhi. He thus became the FIRST Indian Right Arm bowler to capture 18 wickets for India in two Test matches in which in either one of the innings to capture five or more than five wickets as a RIGHT hand bowler. He equaled the feat of Salim Durrani who captured 18 wickets in two test matches for India in 1961-62 against England.Durrani had captured 8(5+3) and 10 ( 6+4) in India twin victory against England in that series in 1962. The difference was Durrani had won two Test matches then and Chandra finished winning one and losing one and Durrani was a Left Arm tweaker whereas Chandra was a Right Arm freak Leg spinner.

8). After Vishvanath’s scene with Tony Greig, left arm spinner Derek Underwood who was standing very close to Vishvanath, said to Vishvanath “ MASTER, AFTER THE DAY, OR WHENEVER AFTER TODAY, WHEN YOU REMEMBER THIS DAY AND THE INCIDENT, JUST REMEMBER THE BOWLER WHO HAD TO TAKE THOSE VERY BADLY FROM YOU FOR THE DAY ” .This was something very GREAT spoken by a GREAT spinner Derek Underwood, about Vishvanath’s century on that day.

India in 1968 had lost to Australia by 0-4, beat New Zealand by 3-1, beat West Indies by 1-0, and England, twice consecutively by 1-0 in 1971 and again by 2-1 in 1972-73. Australia had beaten India by 4-0 and 3-1 but had lost the ashes to England by 0-2 and in between had lost to South Africa by 4-0 in 1970 and thereafter they could not retain the Ashes in 1972 when they were held 2-2 by England, hence India were unofficially declared as the World Champion of Test cricket ...

“ THAT WAS THE GOLDEN MOMENT OF INDIAN CRICKET ”…… and the Man to lead India from the front was AJIT LAXMAN WADEKAR.

Indian cricket has earned TWO names which could be even called the SOBRIQUETS. The first one is COME SEPTEMBER and the second one, for all the GOOD THINGS that has happened in Indian cricket in its history, from February 7th to Februray 11th , is known as FEBRUARY 2nd WEEK , in the annals of Indian cricket.

The picture here depicts the Indian Captain of those THREE HATTRICK WIN against England and West - Indies, Mr Ajit Wadekar who is no more INAUGURATING the " VICTORY - BAT " at Indore . If you happen to go to NAVLAKHA at Indore from the New Palasia start road to the to the All India Radio Station , in between the AIR Radio Station and the New Palasia road , just before reaching the Radio Station on the left hand side of the road one would see this victory bat .

This victory bat was destructed after India were bowled out for " 42 " in their Test match against England in 1974 but then, it was again reconstructed . During the FIRST time when the bat was constructed the name of all the Indian players who beat West-Indies and England featured on this bat along with their signature .

After the BAT was reconstructed in 1975 when it was broken and destructed in 1974 , the signature DID NOT appear on the bat but the name was and now again when it was REFURBISHED in 1996 the status quo of the bat remains the same ,

That is what is the HISTORY of this EPIC Bat.

Well , that is it and That sums it all.

Regards and Thanks

Pics

Shyamal Bhattacharjee 

Mr Shyamal Bhattacharjee, the author was born at West Chirimiri Colliery at District Surguja, Chattisgarh on July 6th 1959 He received his early education at Carmel Convent School Bishrampur and later at Christ Church Boys' Higher Secondary School at Jabalpur. He later joined Hislop College at Nagpur and completed his graduation in Science and he also added a degree in    B A thereafter. He joined the HITAVADA, a leading dailies of Central India at Nagpur as a      Sub-Editor ( Sports ) but gave up to complete his MBA in 1984 He thereafter added a Diploma In Export Management. He has authored THREE books namely Notable Quotes and Noble Thought published by Pustak Mahal in 2001 Indian Cricket : Faces That Changed It  published by Manas Publications in 2009 and Essential Of Office Management published by NBCA, Kolkatta  in 2012. He has a experience of about 35 years in Marketing .

Signature Of Shyamal Bhattacharjee 

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