Tour of Bangladesh 2004-05        Captain: Sourav Ganguly

India's 52nd Test tour

(December 2004)

Second Test-playing tour of Bangladesh by India

       (previous tour 2000)

Departure was delayed when a radical Islamist militant group issued death threats to the players. A group of three Indian government officials and tour manager Sudhakar Rao hurried to Bangladesh to make an assessment of the Indian team's hotel and venue for the first Test match to find out whether it would be safe to stay in Dhaka. The tour went ahead.

Other Indian tours

Previous tour

Pakistan 2003-04

Next tour

Zimbabwe 2005-06

Next tour of Bangladesh

2006-07

Members of the Test tour party (15)

Opening batsmen: : Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag

Middle-order batsmen: Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammad Kaif

Wicket-keeper:Dinesh Karthik

Spinners: Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik

Fast bowlers: Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Shib Paul,

Zonal representation

 Duleep Trophy teams

C: Central (1), E: East (3), N: North (2), S: South (5), W: West (5)

 Ranji Trophy teams

Ba - Baroda (2)

Bn - Bengal (2)

D - Delhi (2)

H - Hyderabad (1)

K - Karnataka (2)

Mb - Mumbai (1)

Pj - Punjab (2)

Rly - Railways (1)

TN - Tamil Nadu (1)

UP  - Uttar Pradesh (1)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(10 December 2004) : 26 yrs  7 months

Test Appearances made before the tour

Tendulkar 118,  Kumble 90,  Dravid 84,  Ganguly 77,  Laxman 59,  Harbhajan 41,  Zaheer 35,  Sehwag 29,  Murali Kartik 8,  Pathan 8,  Kaif 7,  Gambhir 3,  D Karthik 3,  Paul 0,  Gagandeep Singh 0.

Tour Officials

Sudhakar Rao was a former Karnataka cricketer. 

Andrew Leipus, the 34-year-old physio who began his stint with the Indian team in 1999, left the position at the end of the tour of Bangladesh.

Selectors

Kiran More (chairman),  Yashpal Sharma,  Gopal Sharma,  Pranab Roy,  V B Chandrasekhar.

Selection

Unavailable:  Ashish Nehra (side strain),Lakshmipathy Balaji not considered (no fitness report sent on his abdominal muscle injury).

The selectors met at Kolkata. Announcing their team selection was delayed by one day.

Test Tour Party Announced : 1 December 2004.

One-Day Squad Announced 2 December 

Ajit Agarkar, M.S.Dhoni (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Mongia, Joginder Sharma, Sridharan Sriram and Yuvraj Singh were added.

Gagandeep Singh, G.Gambhir, K.D.Karthik, A.R.Kumble, V.V.S.Laxman and S.S.Paul would not be required.

Unavailable: (for ODIs) A.Kumble

Time between selection and departure from India

  7 days

 (1 December - 8 December)

Travel

Kolkata   Q   Dhaka

The 15-member team led by Sourav Ganguly boarded an Airbus of Bangladesh Biman in Kolkata at around 11.45 am on Wednesday 8 December andlanded at Zia International Airport, Dhaka, an hour later. This brought to an end a nervous wait of millions of fans after the Indian embassy had received a letter from Harkat-ul-Jihad, a little known Islamic militant group.

Time spent in Bangladesh

   20 days

(8 December - 28 December)

On-tour selection committee

Reinforcements

None.

One day side : Dhoni, D.Mongia, Sriram, Joginder Sharma joined the team for the ODIs.

Fixtures/Results

† not first-class

§  one-day international

.

Time spent in Bangladesh before First Test:  2 days

(8 December  - 10 December)

Test appearances on tour

2 -   Dravid,  Gambhir,  Ganguly,  Harbhajan Singh,  D.Karthik,  Kumble,  Laxman,  Pathan,   Sehwag,  Tendulkar,  Zaheer Khan.

0 -  Gagandeep Singh,  Mohammad Kaif,  M.Kartik,  Paul.

Match appearances

T  Test match

o  one-day international 

x other match 

⊕ T/20 international

∙  played for opposition

W won  L lost  D drawn  

N no result   A abandoned  

u unknown result

NeitherGagandeep Singh  nor S S Paul played in any match

Highlights

•    Tendulkar’s 248* at Dhaka was his highest individual score and his 34th hundred in Tests, putting him alongside Sunil Gavaskar. With Zaheer Khan he added 133, an Indian Test record for the tenth wicket.

•    Zaheer Khan (75) also broke the record for India’s highest score by a number 11 batsman.

•    Left-arm swing bowler Irfan Pathan took 5-45 and 6-51 (and his first haul of ten wickets in the match)

•    At Chittagong Gambhir (139) and Dravid (160) shared a 2nd wicket partnership of 259 runs

•    Following on, Bangladesh were again routed by Pathan (5-32), who took 18 wickets in the two Tests

Tour Summary

Return to India

DhakaQ   Kolkata

The team flew home from Dhaka to Kolkata on 28 December, where team members took connecting domestic flights to their respective destinations

Time away from India

  20 days  

(8 December -  28 December)

Finances

Accounts of the tour

Postscript