Tour of England 1967       Captain: the Nawab of Pataudi

India’s tenth Test tour

Sixth Test-playing tour of England by India

(April – August 1967)

The Indian Board of Control opted for the first half of the summer of 1967 for her short visit, at a risk of encountering colder and wetter weather, in order to allow a break before the long tour of Australia and New Zealand the following winter. This argument was negated by the Board having accepted to an invitation to tour East Africa for a month afterwards, although this added £1200 to their profit.

The Indian government had turned down the Cricket Board’s request to send a team to England in 1965.

Rain fell almost every day in May and brought the tourists to the First Test completely out of practice on English wickets.

The talented but underconfident Indian batsmen were usually swept aside easily by shrewd English bowling, except in the heroic fightback at Headingley. There was a lack of fast bowlers and when they were unfit Kunderan, the reserve wicket-keeper, had to open the bowling. The tour party contained too many moderate all-rounders and relied excessively on its strong hand of spin bowlers who took their due share of wickets but at a disappointing cost. Denied recent overseas touring experience by India's foreign exchange problems, the young tour party had little chance of resisting a formidable English seam and spin bowling attack,

The team lost all three Test matches and achieved wins only in the minor fixtures. At least the tour finances were healthy, making £8000 in England in addition to the profit in East Africa.

Other Indian tours

Previous tour

West Indies 1961-62

Next tour

 Australia 1967-68

Next England tour

1971

Members of the Test tour party  (16)

Opening batsman: Dilip Sardesai 

Wicket-keepers/opening batsmen :Farokh Engineer, Budi Kunderan

Middle-order batsmen: Nawab of Pataudi, Ajit Wadekar, Chandu Borde, Hanumant Singh, Venkata Subramanya, Ramesh Saxena

Spinners: Bishan Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna, Srinivas Venkataraghaven.

Fast/medium bowlers: Subrata Guha, Sadanand Mohul, Rusi Surti.

Zonal representation

 Duleep Trophy teams

C: Central (1), E: East (2), N: North (1), S: South (6), W: West (6)

 Ranji Trophy teams

Bn - Bengal (1)

Bh  -  Bihar  (1)

B  -  Bombay  (3)

Gj -  Gujarat  (1)

Hd  - Hyderabad (1)

Ms  -  Madras  (1)

Mh  - Maharashtra (2)

My  -  Mysore  (4)

N Pj  - North Punjab  (1)

Raj – Rajasthan (1)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(8 June 1967):

 26 yrs  7 months

Test Appearances made before the tour

Borde 43,  Pataudi 21,  Sardesai 17,  Kunderan 16,  Surti 13,  Engineer 12,  Chandrasekhar 11,  Hanumant Singh 11,  Venkataraghaven 6,  Prasanna 3,  Subramanya 3,  Bedi 2,  Wadekar 2,  Guha 0,  Mohul 0,  Saxena 0.

Tour Officials

The manager criticised the Indian Board for not affording a physiotherapist.

Selectors

M Dutta Ray (chairman),  Col H R Adhikari,  M K Mantri and Ghulam Ahmed.

Tour skipper Pataudi and the manager, Keki Tarapor, were co-opted onto the selection panel.

Selection

The Indian Board named the managerial team the day before the team was announced.

Unavailable  None.

Tour Party Announced :  19 January 1967.

Not Selected :  M L Jaisimha,  R G Nadkarni.

Time between selection and departure from India

  94 days

 (19 January - 23 April)

Travel

Bombay   Q London

The team flew from Santa Cruz Airport, Bombay, on Sunday 23 April 1978 and landed at Heathrow Airport, London, later the same day.

Time spent in England

   95 days

(23 April - 27 July)

On-tour selection committee

Nawab of Pataudi (captain),  Chandu Borde (vice-captain),  Keki Tarapor (manager)

Reinforcements

None, although Dilip Sardesai returned home early. He had suffered a leg injury, not on the field of play, but on the staircase at Lord's, and then broke a finger in the second Test.

Guha had an injury to his right knee and returned to India after the English tour on 26 July.

Fixtures/Results

ϯ not first-class

.

Time spent in England before First Test:

46 days

(23 April - 8 June)

Test appearances on tour

3 -   Bedi,  Borde,  Chandrasekhar,  Engineer,  Pataudi,  Prasanna,  Wadekar.

2 -   Hanumant Singh,  Kunderan,  Subramanya,  Surti

1 -   Guha,  Sardesai,  Saxena,  Venkataraghaven.

0 -   Mohul.

Highlights

•   "Tiger" Pataudi's runs (64 and 148) in the first Test at Headingley could not prevent defeat .

•    The Indian total at Headingley (510) was their highest against England and included a second wicket partnership of 168 between Engineer and Wadekar.

•    The famed spin quartet - Prasanna, Chandrasekhar, Bedi and Venkataraghavan - played together for the first and only time in the side for the third Test at Edgbaston.

•    Chandrasekhar was the most successful Indian bowler with 16 wickets in the Test series.  

Tour Summary

Return to India

Nairobi   Q  Bombay

After a day in Paris on 26 July, the team flew from London Heathrow to Kampala, Uganda, arriving on 28 July. The team made a tour of East Africa, playing seven matches between 29 July and 21 August.

The team flew back to India from Nairobi, arriving in Bombay in the early hours of 23 August, then flying on to Calcutta.

Time away from India

  122 days  

(23 April to 23 August)

Finances

The tour made a profit of £9 000  (£7,800 in England and £1,200 in East Africa)

Accounts of the tour

Postscript