Tour of India 1979-80                   Captain: Kim Hughes

Forty-first Australian Test tour

Fifth Test-playing tour of India by the Australian team   

    (August -

         November 1979)

This tour took place unusually early in the Indian season to allow the team to return home in time for the first 'twin tour' season in Australia. This meant that play was frequently interrupted by the monsoon rain.

The tour was needed to get India to defer their own tour to Australia until 1980-81, which allowed the Australian Board to invite the West Indies back for the first season since the settlement with Packer (whereby Channel Nine was granted exclusive rights to televise Test cricket)  It compensated for the postponement of India's tour of Australia but had been arranged well beforehand, in May 1978.  

Many of Australia's leading players were still absent because the tour party had been chosen before the final settlement between World Series Cricket and the Australian Cricket Board. The more experienced tourists, Hughes, Border and Dymock, helped keep the margin of defeat down to two-nil. This result was neither a surprise nor an ignominy considering that ten of the touring party had never represented their country abroad before.  However, none of the first-class matches was won.

The tour went ahead though it was put in doubt at the start when the London High Commission received intelligence that the team would be targeted if they played their first match in the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Other Australian Tours

Previous tour

West Indies 1977-78

Next tour

Pakistan 1979-80

Next tour of India

1986-87

Members of the Test tour party  (15  + 1)

Opening batsmen:  Graeme Wood, Rick Darling, Andrew Hilditch

Middle-order batsmen:  Allan Border, Kim Hughes, Graham Yallop, Dav Whatmore

Wicket-keeper:  Kim Wright

Spin bowlers: Jim Higgs, Bruce Yardley, Peter Sleep

Fast bowlers:  Geoff Dymock, Alan Hurst (replaced by Geoff Lawson), Rodney Hogg, Graeme Porter.

State representation

  Sheffield Shield teams

NSW  New South Wales (2)

Qld  Queensland (1)

SA   South Australia (3)

Tas   Tasmania (0)

Vic   Victoria (4)

WA  Western Australia (5)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(12 September 1979) : 

   26 yrs  3 months.

Test Appearances made before the tour

Yallop 15,  Wood 13,  Hughes 11,  Yardley 11,  Hurst 10,  Darling 9,  Higgs 9,  Hogg 8,  Dymock 8,  Border 5,  Wright 4,  Hilditch 3,  Whatmore 2,  Sleep 1,  Lawson 0,  Porter 0.

Tour officials

The manager Bob Merriman, a labour relations manager with Ford, was Secretary of the Victorian Country Cricket Association. He became Chairman of the Australian Cricket Board 2001-2005.

Selectors

Sam Loxton (Victoria), Ray Lindwall (Queensland) and  Phil Ridings (South Australia) chose the team.

Selection

Unavailable:   Only players who took part in last season's Sheffield Shield programme were considered for selection, which ruled out former WSC players.

Tour Party Announced :  18 July 1979.

The names were given out shortly after the return of the World Cup squad from England.

The captain and vice-captain were named on 19 July.

Only one wicket-keeper (Wright) was chosen. Yallop would be the reserve keeper, if needed.

Not selected : Peter Toohey, and three of the World Cup team Trevor Laughlin, Jeff Moss and Gary Cosier.

Time between selection and departure from Australia            

     34 days

(18 July - 21 August

Travel

Sydney  Q    Madras

Departure was on 21 August 1979.  The team flew from Sydney, via Perth and Singapore. The plane had to return to Singapore when, one hour out, the Air India Boeing-747 lost power in one of its four engines. The team finally reached Meenam Bakkam airport, Madras, at midnight on 22/23 August.

The team flew to Srinagar for its first match amidst strict security, being met by dozens of armed police at the airport, whisked away to the hotel and so on, following threats from the Pakistan-based Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.

Time spent in India

   77 days

(23 August - 8 November)

On-tour selection panel

Kim Hughes (captain),  Andrew Hilditch (vice-captain),  Graham Yallop.

Reinforcements

On 16 October it was decided that Alan Hurst who had suffered a back injury would be repatriated for treatment after the Kanpur Test.  NSW fast bowler Geoff Lawson was summoned as a replacement.

Fixtures/Results

†not first-class

§  one-day international

Time spent in India before First Test: 

  20 days

(23 August - 12 September)

Test appearances on tour

6 -  Border,  Higgs,  Hilditch,  Hogg,  Hughes,  Wright,  Yallop.

5  -  Darling,  Dymock,  Whatmore

3 -  Yardley

2 -  Hurst,  Sleep,  Wood

0  - Lawson,  Porter.

Highlights

•  Border (162) and Hughes (100) shared a partnership of 222 at Madras, the 3rd wicket record against India

•  Jim Higgs took 7 for 143 in an innings in the Madras Test

•  Geoff Dymock had 12 wickets in the Kanpur match, getting all 11 Indian player out.

•  Graham Yallop (167) made Australia's highest individual score in India to date.

Tour Summary

Return to Australia

Bombay   Q   Perth

On 8 November 1979 the team flew from Santa Cruz Airport, Bombay, on an 18-hour flight via Singapore to Perth, arriving on 9 November.

Time away from Australia  

    80 days  

(21 August to 9 November)

Finances

Accounts of the tour

Postscript

Although the players were, for the time being, members of the Australian national side, many of them felt remote from what was happening in Australia where other players were, with the new prospect of higher rewards for top cricketers since the settlement between Packer and the Australian Board, making their mark in the Sheffield Shield competition. "They played like young men under sentence of death which, in cricketing terms, they were."  On arriving home Kim Hughes admitted that too few of his players came up to scratch.