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Test Cricket Tours - India to Australia 1980-81

 

 

Tour of Australia & New Zealand 1980-81      Captain: Sunil Gavaskar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Nineteenth Test tour

 

 

Fourth official Test tour of Australia by India

 

Third official Test tour of New Zealand by India      

 

 

 

( November 1980 –

                March 1981)

 

 
 

Australia was at full strength now that Packer World Series Cricket had ended. This tour of Australia was deferred from 1979-80 to allow England to participate in the first post-WSC Test series and a triangular tournament of one-day internationals, so the Indians visited in 1980-81. The schedules imposed by the requirements of television since the settlement with World Series Cricket caused difficulty for players switching from one format to another This is well illustrated by the Indians’ tour programme, as shown in ‘Highlights’ below.

Australia seemed to be coasting to a comfortable series victory needing only 143 runs to win at Melbourne when they were dismissed by Kapil Dev and Doshi’s bowling for 83, their lowest total against India.

Gavaskar, back again as captain, came close to forfeiting this Test match when, after he and Chetan Chauhan had put on an opening partnership of 165, Gavaskar was very unhappy with a leg-before decision against him. He told Chetan to leave the ground along with him, and the two had almost reached the gate when the manager intervened and sent Chauhan back.

In New Zealand, the Indians fared poorly against seam bowling in two Tests and Bracewell’s spin in the third.  New Zealand completed a win only at Wellington but this was enough to  gain their first victory in a series against India.

 

 
 

Other Indian tours

 

 

Previous tour

England 1979

 

Next tour

England 1982

 
 

Next Australian tour

1985-86

 

 

Next New Zealand tour

1989-90

 

 

 

Members of the Test tour  party (16)

 

 

 

Opening batsmen: : Sunil Gavaskar, Tirumalai Srinivasan, Chetan Chauhan

Middle-order batsmen: Dilip Vengsarkar, Sandeep Patil, Gundappa Viswanath, Yashpal Sharma.

Wicket-keepers: Syed Kirmania, Bharat Reddy

Spinners: Dilip Doshi, Kirti Azad, Shivlal Yadav

Fast bowlers: Kapil Dev, Yograj Singh, Kharsan Ghavri, Roger Binny.

 

 

 

 

 

K B J  Azad

D

22

RHB   OB

 

R M H Binny

K

25

RHB   RM

 

C P S Chauhan

D

33

RHB  opener

 

D R Doshi

Bn

33

SLA

 

S M Gavaskar

B

31

RHB  opener     captain

 

K D Ghavri

B

29

LHB   LFM

 

Kapil Dev

Hy

21

RFM

 

S M H Kirmani

K

31

WK

 

S M Patil

B

24

RHB

 

B Reddy

TN

26

WK

 

T E Srinivasan

TN

30

RHB  opener

 

D B Vengsarkar

B

24

RHB

 

G R Viswanath

K

30

RHB   vice-captain

 

N S Yadav

Hd

23

OB

 

M Yashpal Sharma

Pj

26

RHB

 

B Yograj Singh

Hy

22

RFM

 

 

FLAG_India 

 

 

Representation of teams:  

Bn  -  Bengal (1)

B  -  Bombay (4)

D  -  Delhi  (2)

Hy  - Haryana  (2)

Hd  - Hyderabad (1)

K  - Karnataka (3)

Pj  - Punjab  (1)

TN  - Tamil Nadu (2)

 

  

 

  

Average age of players at time of first Test match (2 January 1981):

    27 yrs 5 months.s

 

 

 

Test Appearances made before the tour

 

 

Viswanath 69,  Gavaskar 63,  Kirmani 42,  Vengsarkar 36,  Ghavri 35,  Chauhan 34,  Kapil Dev 26,  Yashpal 16,  Doshi 13,  Yadav 11,  Binny 7,  Reddy 4,  Patil 3,  Kirti Azad 0,  Srinivasan 0,  Yograj 0,  Shastri 0.

 

 

 

 

 

Team Officials

 

Wing-Cmdr S A K Durrani

Tour Manager

R G Nadkarni

Assistant manager

 

 

 

 

 

 

Selectors

 

P R Umrigar (chairman),  M L Jaisimha,  V L Mehra, D G Phadkar,  Chandu Sarwate.

 

 

 

 

Selection

 

Unavailable:  None

Tour Party Announced : 27 September 1980

Not selected :  S Venkataraghaven.

 

 

Time between selection and departure from India

 52 days    (27 September - 18 November)

 

 

 

 

Travel

 

There was a ten-day physical fitness camp in Delhi under Dr Tandon, then the team flew out of Madras on 18 November 1980, via Singapore, to Perth.

 

 

The Indian team flew out of Melbourne and arrived in Auckland on 12 February for their New Zealand tour.

 

 

Time spent in Australia

85 days  (19? November - 12 February)

and in New Zealand  36 days  (12 Feb - 20 March)

 

 

 

 

 

On-tour selection committee

 

Sunil Gavaskar (captain),  Gundappa Viswanath (vice-captain), Durrani (manager), Bapu Nadkarni  (assistant manager)

 

Gavaskar rested from the captaincy in the match against Queensland. When Viswanath and Gavaskar both took a game off for the match against Tasmania, Chauhan took over as captain

 

 

 

 

 

Reinforcements

 

R J  Shastri

B

18

RHB    SLA

 

Shastri was called up after Doshi fractured his instep playing against Victoria. He hobbled through the third Test with the injury undiagnosed.  Yadav had also broken a toe on his left foot. Neither of these two players returned home and both played again on the tour.

 
 

 

 

 

 

Fixtures/Results

 

 

 

 

† not first-class

.

Time spent in Australia before First Test:

 44 days

(19? November - 2 January)

 

 

 

 

Test appearances on tour

 

6 -  Chauhan,  Gavaskar,  Kapil Dev,  Kirmani,  Patil,  Vengsarkar,  Viswanath.

5 -  Doshi.

4 -  Ghavri,  Yashpal.

3 -  Shastri,  Yadav.

2 -  Binny.

1 -  Kirti Azad,  Srinivasan,  Yograj Singh.

0 -  Reddy.

 

 

 

 

 

Highlights

 

    The duration of each match in sequence caused by changing formats was :

       3-day, 1-day, 1, 4, 1, 1, 1, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 5, 4, 2, 5, 1, 1, 3, 5, 3, 5, 5, 2. 1.

   A brilliant 174 by Sandeep Patil at Adelaide was India’s highest score against Australia.

   Ghavri and Yadav survived for 9 overs and 31 minutes to save the match at Adelaide.

   India went on to win at Melbourne and halve the series, dismissing Australia for 83 (Kapil Dev 5-28).

               

 

 

 

 

Tour Summary

 

 

P

W

L

D

Aban

Test Matches

 6

1

 2

 3

-

Other first-class matches

 7

2

 1

 4

-

Minor matches

 9

5

 2

 2

-

One-day internationals

12

3

 9

 0

-

All Matches

34

11

14

 9

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return to India

 

The touring party had arrived in New Zealand at Auckland on 12 February. It departed from there to Sydney on 20 March, and on to a brief tour of Fiji.  Patil went directly back to Bombay, where he arrived on 22 March for treatment to a back injury.

The team landed at Santa Cruz Airport, Bombay, flying again via Sydney, on 28 March.

After two days of rest, they were flying off again, to Sharjah to play in a benefit match for Asif Iqbal.

 

 

 

Time away from India

  130 days   (18 November to 28 March)

 

 

 

 

Published acounts

 

in “Sandy Storm”  by Sandeep Patil

“Test Cricket: Australia vs New Zealand and India”  Richie Benaud (Sydney, 1981)

 

 



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