Tour of India 1965-66

Tour Cancelled

Would have been 13th West Indian Test tour

Would have been third Test-playing tour of India by West Indies.

 (November 1965 - 

                  February 1966)

West Indies’ 1965-66 tour of India never took place.  They had been invited in 1964 to make  a three-month tour starting in mid-November 1965.

In the Indian Cricket Board of Control questions were being asked about West Indies' financial demands but, fatally, on 3 June 1965 the Indian government rejected the Indian Board’s plan to invite them. The Finance Ministry gave a ruling that it was impossible to release $168,000 of foreign exchange. The Indian Board attempted to lower their costs by reducing the three month programme to an eight-week tour beginning on 22 December 1965. But the West Indies Board rejected that idea and Ken Wishart, the Board’s full-time Secretary, announced on Saturday 2 October that the tour would not take place.

West Indies then hoped to arrange a tour limited to Pakistan in 1965-66 but only two days later on 4 October it, too, had to be postponed because of the India-Pakistan War. 

Finally, on 27 October a proposal that the Indian tour should take place in 1966-67 instead found agreement.  These new arrangements would not include visiting Pakistan because Ceylon was making her second tour there in November 1966, followed by a visit from an MCC under-25 team. West Indies did not eventually tour Pakistan until 1974-75.

Other West Indies tours

Previous tour

England 1963

Next tour

England 1966

Next tour of India

1966-67

Possible members of the Test tour party (17)

Regional representation

B - Barbados (8)

BG - Guiana (4)

Ja - Jamaica (3)

T - Trinidad & Tobago (2)

Average age of team at time of proposed first Test match

(13 December 1965) :

     28 yrs  8 month

Test Appearances made before the proposed tour

Sobers 57, Kanhai 48, Hunte 41, Hall 38, Gibbs 31, Solomon 27, Butcher 25, CC Griffith 16, Nurse 14, Hendriks 8, Davis 4, King 1, Rodriguez 4,  White 2,  Brancker 0,  EHC Griffith 0.

Tour Officials

Selectors

Selection

Travel

On 3 October 1965 the West Indies cancelled its proposed cricket tour of India later in the year because of the unsettled conditions there

Planned Fixtures

† not first-class

.

Tour Summary

Postscript

Cancelling the tour meant that the West Indian selectors could delay making up their minds whether to select Charlie Griffith whose bowling action had been condemned after the 1965 series against Australia by the Australians Simpson and O’Neill as well as journalist Richie Benaud.