A ban imposed on six players
for taking part in an unauthorised visit to North America after the 1989 West Indies tour was first deferred and then cancelled
on appeal. The Board was also unable to enforce its ban preventing the
players from writing articles during the tour.
Demands for a 70 per cent
increase in payments were rejected and the players (except those on their
first tour) refused to accept the existing tour fees.All but three of the Indian squad handed
their fees back to the Cricket Board in protest at the rejection of their pay
claims and refused to accept the tour fees of 50 000 rupees ($3000 each). The
exceptions were the three junior members : Vivek Razdan who had played only
one first-class match (for the Rest of India) before being selected for the
tour; Sachin Tendulkar, who made his
first Test appearance at Karachi to become India's youngest-ever player; and Salil
Ankola.
This was the first Test series
to make use of neutral umpires. John Holder and John Hampshire officiated and
there were noticeably better on-field relations between the two teams. Any
trouble came from spectators, the Karachi ODI being called off owing to the
crowd throwing stones at the Indian players.
S Karunakaran Nair of Kerala
Cricket Association later served the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)
as Treasurer (1993-97), as Finance Committee chairman (1998-2002), and as BCCI
Secretary (2003 to 2005).
Selectors
Raj Singh Dungarpur (chairman),Akash Lal,Ramesh Saxena,Naren Tamhane
and Gundappa Viswanath met in Bombay.
Selection
On 5 NovemberSrikkanth was retained as Indian captain for
the Pakistan
tour.
Unavailable: Dilip Vengsarkar opted out of the tour
because of mental and physical staleness.
Tour party announced:5 November 1989.
Not chosen: Arun Lal, Mohinder Amarnath, Atul Wassan, Venkatapathy Raju.
Vivek Razdan was the first
player to come through the MRF Pace Foundation to play for the national team.
When the players demanded
an increase in their tour payments the Board threatened to select a
completely new team.The selectors
were asked to report to Delhi
on 8 November to select another team but the team members signed their
contracts under protest
There were 8 stand-bys for
the tour:Atul Wasson, Venkatapathy Raju; M Chaturvedi, K P Bhaskar, M Venkatarama, Ajay Jadeja, Shantanu Sugwekar, Gursharan Singh (who was stood down when it
was learned he had a broken finger)
Time between selection and departure from India
4 days(5 - 9 November)
Travel
New DelhiQLahore
The tour was brought forward by
one week to accommodate the West Indies Board's request for an extra Test
match.????
The team left New
Delhi for Lahore
on 9 November 1989 and played a match the next day.
The tour selectors requested that
Chetan Sharma should be sent because Salil Ankola suffered a thigh injury in
the first Test and missed the second, but the Indian Board refused.
Fixtures/Results
The tour opener was played for
the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital Fund.
The 20-over match at Peshawar was played as an exhibition match
when the ODI was abandoned,
Ajay Sharma played only in the
unofficial one-day match against Pakistan XI at the start of the tour.
Highlights
•At KarachiKapil Dev played his hundredth Test and
Sachin Tendulkar (16 years 205 days) made his debut, becoming the third
youngest Test player.
•Manoj Prabhakar had
five wickets in an innings at Karachi (5-104)
and Faisalabad
(6-132)
•Azharuddin scored a
century (109) to ensure the second Test at Faisalabad would not be lost
•Vivek Razdan took 5-79
at Sialkot on
his second Test appearance.
•Sanjay Manjrekar scored
569 runs (average 94.83) in the Test series, including 218 at Lahore.
Tour
Summary
P
W
L
D
Aban
Test Matches
4
0
0
4
-
Other first-class matches
1
0
0
1
-
† Minor
matches
2
0
2
0
-
§ One-day
internationals
4
0
2
1
1
All Matches
10
0
4
6
1
Return
to India
LahoreQ?
The Indians departed for home
from Lahore Airport on Saturday 23 December. They
were seen off at the airport by officials of the BCCP and LCCA.
Time away from India
44 days
(9 November to 23 December)
Finances
Postscript
The Indian Board appointed Bishan Singh Bedi as India’s first coach in December 1989 and he made
a Test tour in that capacity for the first time to New Zealand in January 1990.