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| Test Cricket Tours - India to England 1952
| Tour of England
1952 Captain: Vijay Hazare | | | | | | | | India’s fifth official Test tour Fourth
Test-playing tour of England
by India (April - September 1952) | The Indian selectors were deprived of the services of Vijay
Merchant and Vinoo Mankad, who made themselves unavailable for this tour. However, they did not choose two other great
cricketers, Amarnath and Mushtaq Ali, though both were willing to go to England. Merchant resisted pressure persuading him not
to retire; the selectors wanted him to captain the team but he was suffering
from an injury to his shoulder.
Mankad, their second choice, was already committed to a season in the
Lancashire League, so the leadership fell on Vijay Hazare, the least suited
to it. The tourists asked George Duckworth, manager of Commonwealth
sides in India,
to act as 'guide and mentor' for the side. India had beaten England
for the first time (at Madras) in the 1951-52
series and expected to do well, but were outclassed by England and
became very defensive in trying to avoid defeat. The Indians lost the first three Test matches heavily and avoided
defeat in the fourth only because two days were lost to bad weather. England's new
fast bowler Fred Trueman, on debut, was fearsomely fast, and the Indians played
with what has been described as "hysterical uneasiness against
pace". By the time of the third
Test, the batting line-up had become demoralised. The team’s batting totals were 58 and 82 at
Old Trafford and 98 (having been 5 for 6) at The Oval before the rain came to
save them from another defeat. | Other
Indian tours Previous
tour Australia
1947-48 Next
tour West Indies
1952-53 Next England
tour 1959 | | | Members
of the Test tour party (17 + 1) Opening batsmen: Pankaj Roy, Datta Gaekwad. Middle-order batsmen:, Vijay
Hazare, Coimbatarao Gopinath, Polly Umrigar, Hemu Adhikari , Vijay Manjrekar Wicket-keepers:Madhav
Mantri, Probir Sen. All-rounders: Vinoo Mankad, Dattu Phadkar. Spinners: Ghulam Ahmed, Sadu Shinde, Chandu Sarwate,
Hiralal Gaekwad. Fast bowlers: Nirode Chowdhury, Gulabrai
Ramchand, Ramesh Divecha | H R
Adhikari | Sv | 32 | RHB | | N R
Chowdhury | Bn | 29 | RM | | R V
Divecha | B | 24 | RFM | | D K
Gaekwad | Ba | 23 | RHB | | H G
Gaekwad | Hk | 23 | SLA | | Ghulam
Ahmed | Hd | 30 | OB | | C D Gopinath
| Ms | 22 | RHB | | V S Hazare | Ba | 37 | RHB | | V L
Manjrekar | B | 20 | RHB | | M K
Mantri | B | 30 | WK | | D G
Phadkar | B | 36 | RHB RFM | | G S Ramchand | B | 24 | RFM | | Pankaj
Roy | Bn | 24 | RHB opener | | C T
Sarwate | Hk | 31 | OB | | P Sen | Bn | 26 | reserve WK | | S G
Shinde | B | 28 | LBG | | P R
Umrigar | Gj | 26 | RHB (RM) | |
| Zonal representation C: Central (2), E: East (3), N: North (1), S: South (2), W: West
(9) Ranji
Trophy teams Ba - Baroda
(2) Bn - Bengal
(3) B - Bombay
(6) Gj - Gujarat (1) Hk -
Holkar (2) Hd - Hyderabad
(1) Ms - Madras
(1) Sv -
Services (1) Average age of team at time 7of first Test match (5 June 1952) : 27
yrs 2 months. | | | Test
Appearances made before the tour | Hazare 18, Mankad 18, Adhikari 13, Phadkar 12, Sen 10, Sarwate 9, Umrigar 6, Ghulam Ahmed 5, Roy 5, Shinde 5, Gopinath 3, Choudhury 2, Divecha 2, Manjrekar 2, Mantri 1, D K Gaekwad 0, H G Gaekwad 0, Ramchand 0. | | | | Tour
Officials | Pankaj Gupta | Tour Manager | N Karmarkar | Cricket manager | William Ferguson | Scorer / baggage |
| | | | Selectors | Homi N Contractor (chairman), M Dutta Ray,
C K Nayudu, with Vijay Hazare
in an advisory role. | | | | Selection | The selectors firstly agreed on ten players to tour - Adhikari,
Chowdhury, Ghulam, Gopinath, Hazare, Phadkar, Ramchand, Roy, Sen and
Umrigar. But the Chairman was absent
unwell when the committee met later in Calcutta,
so they finalised the squad using a telephone link. Unavailable: On 16 February 1952 it was decided
that Vinoo Mankad's services were not required for the tour, saying it was
because he was engaged to play for Haslingden in the Lancashire League. However skipper Hazare asked the Board
permission to use Mankad in all the Test matches. Haslingden refused and
Mankad missed the first Test until persuasion by manager Gupta led to
Mankad's release - for which Sir Herbert Merrett, President of Glamorgan CCC,
paid a cash sum to secure the release. Tour Party Announced : 19 March 1952. Datta Gaekwad was named, if the Board of Control would allow a
17th player (which they did). Not selected /Stand-bys : S K Girdhary (Bn), D H Shodhan (Guj), P G Joshi (Mh), M Rege (Mh). | Time between selection and departure from India 33 days (19 March - 21 April) | | | Travel Calcutta Q London | The West Zone players left Bombay
for Calcutta
on 18 April. The kit and equipment had
already been sent ahead by sea. The
team flew out of Dum Dum Airport,
Calcutta, in a specially chartered Skymaster
on the morning of 21 April on the 30-hour flight, via Karachi
and Basra, to London. They landed in a heavy shower at Heathrow Airport on the afternoon of 22 April. Mankad (with Sohoni, Gul Mohammad and Nimbalkar) sailed to
England for the league cricket season, joining the 'Stratheden' when the ship passed through Bombay on 20 March,
carrying the West Indian professionals back to England from their New Zealand
tour. | Time spent in England 147 days (22 April - 16 September) | | | On-tour
selection committee | Hazare (captain), Adhikari (vice-captain), Phadkar. | | | | Reinforcements | V M H
Mankad | B | 35 | RHB opener SLA |
V M H Mankad was made available by his
contracted club for the three Test matches. | | | | Fixtures/Results | a | † Osterley | Indian Gymkhana XII | Drawn | b | Worcester | Worcestershire | Drawn | c | The Oval | Surrey | Lost 141 r | d | Leicester | Leicestershire | Drawn | e | Cambridge | Cambridge University | Drawn | f | Lord's | M.C.C. | Drawn | g | Oxford | Oxford University | Won 9 w | h | Ilford | Essex | Drawn | i | Taunton | Somerset | Drawn | j | Cardiff | Glamorgan | Drawn | k | HEADINGLEY | ENGLAND First Test | LOST 7 w | l | † Dublin | Gentlemen of Ireland | Won inns 9 | m | † Belfast | Gentlemen of Ireland | Drawn | n | LORD'S | ENGLAND Second Test | LOST 8w | o | † Gillingham | Combined Services | Won 9 w | p | Manchester | Lancashire | Won 10 w | q | †Sunderland | Durham | Drawn | r | Nottingham | Nottinghamshire | Drawn | s | Chesterfield | Derbyshire | Drawn | t | Sheffield | Yorkshire | Drawn | u | MANCHESTER | ENGLAND Third Test | LOST inns 207 r | v | Blackpool | Commonwealth XI | Drawn | w | The Oval | Surrey | Won 6 w | x | Northampton | Northamptonshire | Drawn | y | Swansea | Glamorgan | Drawn | z | Edgbaston | Warwickshire | Drawn | a’ | Cheltenham | Gloucestershire | Won 6 w | b’ | THE OVAL | ENGLAND Fourth Test | DRAWN | c’ | Hove | Sussex | Lost 6 w | d’ | Lord's | Middlesex | Drawn | e’ | Canterbury | Kent | Drawn | f’ | Bournemouth | Hampshire | Drawn | g’ | Hastings | England XI | Drawn | h’ | † Norwich | Minor Counties | Drawn | I’ | Scarborough | T.N.Pearce's XI | Drawn | | | | |
| † not first-class . Time spent in England
before First Test: 44
days (22 April - 5 June) | | | Test
appearances on tour | 4 - Ghulam Ahmed, Hazare, Manjrekar, Phadkar, Ramchand, Roy, Umrigar. 3 - Adhikari, Mankad. 2 - Divecha, Mantri, Sen, Shinde. 1 - D K Gaekwad, Gopinath. 0 - Chowdhury, H G Gaekwad, Sarwate. | | | | Highlights | • India lost 4
wickets before scoring a run in the second innings of the first Test match at
Headingley. • Vijay Hazare (56) and
Dattu Phadkar (64) then set about repairing the innings with a stand of 105. • Vinoo Mankad's wonderful all-round
performance of 72 and 184 opening the batting and bowling figures of 73-24-196-5 and 24-12-35-0 when called up for the second Test at
Lord's. • Mankad and Hazare made
a partnership of 211 at Lord's, a third wicket record at the time. . | | | | Tour
Summary | | P | W | L | D | Aban | Test Matches | 4 | 0 | 3 | 1 | - | Other first-class matches | 25 | 4 | 2 | 19 | - | ϯ Minor matches | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | - | All Matches | 35 | 6 | 5 | 24 | - |
| | | | Return
to India Tilbury T Bombay ‘Chusan’ | On the afternoon of 16
September 1952 the team sailed from Tilbury docks on the 'Chusan', together with the Indians who had been playing league
cricket and the Indian cycling team from the Helsinki Olympic Games. The ship reached Bombay on 30 September. | Time away from India 162 days (21 April to 30 September | | | Finances | The tour made a profit of £11 000. As a sequel to the profits accruing, a special bonus
of Rs 1000 was paid to each member of the Indian team in England and
an honorarium of Rs 2500 to the manager Mr Gupta. | | | | Published
accounts of the tour | "Rivals in the Sun" (1952) by Raju Bharatan [Popular Book Depot] | | | | Postscript | | | |
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