The immigration officer at the Dam Dam Airport (Calcutta) looked a bit too pensive for a new year's day. Admittedly, the weather was unusually gloomy for this time of the year. As we had left Dhaka about an hour ago, we had noticed clouds all around the sky. The weather worsened further during our short fly. Frequent bumping produced my 1st ever plane journey feel like a nightmare. As we landed at Calcutta, we were greeted by light drizzle. It was pretty light indeed, but it was sufficient to make us really feel uncomfortable in unfamiliar surroundings. Alot more importantly (at least from the Immigration officer's point of view) this light drizzle combined with poor light was enough to postpone the play just after only 8 overs at the Eden Gardens. This was the 2nd day of the 3rd test (in a five test series) among the hosts India and England. Soon the drizzle became heavier, ending any remote likelihood of resumption of play for the day.
Of course, the young officer was not the only one upset about so small play. The England captain David Gower seemed extremely reluctant to come off the field. In fact, if anybody was content to see dark clouds hovering all around the sky on a new year's day, it was the England captain. He came to India following a disastrous summer, when his side was ‘White Washed' 5- by the mighty Windies. A lackluster performance in the drawn match at Lord's against SL, the new boys of globe cricket, followed. And here in India, they had been quite predictably properly beaten on the 1st test of the series, at Mumbai. After struggling badly to cope with the pace of Marshall and Garner throughout the summer, the English batsmen failed miserably against the leg spin of young Laxman Shivaramakrishnan. The leg spinner from Tamil Nadu took 12 wickets to make certain that Gatting's brave hundred in the 2nd innings went in vain. Already, there were talks of yet another ‘White-wash'. However, the Englishmen fought back brilliantly to win the 2nd test at Delhi.
Here in Caclutta, they did well on the 1st day to restrict India to 168/four, 3 of the wickets falling to the left arm spin of Phil Edmonds. This may well give the false impression that the ball was turning square on, basically it was a mixture of excellent thoughtful bowling mixed with not so superior batting that resulted in England taking the initiative. Both Vengsarkar (48) and Amarnath (42) threw it away soon after searching set. At the close of play, debutant Azharuddin (13*) was at the wicket with in form Ravi Shastri (26*).
On the 2nd morning, as the circumstances looked ideal for seam bowling, Gower relied on his quicker bowlers Cowans and Ellison. Specially, Ellison, from Kent was ideally suited for such condition. In spite of his impressive debut in the summer, at the Oval, he was deemed a gamble for ‘The Passage to India' primarily given that the Indian conditions are never ever appropriate for swing bowling. But, Ellison bowled well to take four wickets in the very first innings at Delhi, and here, although he was wicket-much less on the 1st day, he looked ominous on the 2nd morning, receiving prodigious swing in both directions. Both Ravi Shastri and Azharuddin played and missed on quite a few occasions.
Although, it was not completely unfamiliar encounter for Ravi, getting toured NZ and England before, it was a new knowledge for the rookie Azza. A consistent performer in India's domestic cricket for a number of years, he also impressed in the Zimbabwe tour with the India U-25 side (led by Ravi Shastri), for the duration of the 83-84 season. Here, he got his opportunity, just after Sandip Patil's approach against brief pitch bowling looked tremendously suspicious in the earlier two test matches. Ironically, Azharuddin's own method against the short stuff would be questioned a large number of times by the pundits for the duration of his lengthy and eventful career. But, here on this gloomy January day, he faced little short pitch bowling. Instead, the England bowlers pitched the ball up leaving the circumstances to do the rest.
And it did a lot. The England keeper Paul Downton (like Ellison, initially from Kent, but now playing for Middlesex), and the slip cordon waited in great anticipation as balls just after balls whizzed pass the bat of the proper-handers. There were a lot of ahs and uhs, and close shouts, but sadly for England no breakthroughs. Possibly, the inexperience of the two England seam bowlers played a part. They tried to take wickets practically every ball. A extra knowledge bowler like Willis or Botham would have tried a slightly unique method. They would have kept it nice and steady, and maybe producing 1 or two effort balls every over.
Only 8 runs had been added in the roughly half an hour's play on the 2nd morning, but to their fantastic credit, the two Indian batsmen survived this challenging period. Then the weather and the umpires came to their rescue. Gower, the England skipper, looked fully bemused by the selection to come off. To him, the conditions were great enough to continue. Here, possibly, the cricketing culture of the nations conflicted. In England, it's not uncommon to play cricket in dim light, even amidst slight drizzle. Here, in the subcontinent, just before the days, of floodlit cricket, cricket was generally related with vibrant, sunny days. The fielders receiving tired in the mid-afternoon heat, the bat shining in blazing sunshine, the spectators taking a soft bite at the ice creams, these are the standard scenarios in sub-continent cricket. So, not surprisingly, the umpires Ganguly and Vikramraju easily decided to call off the play as soon as the light drizzle began to fall more than Eden.
So, there was no further play on the day. The vast crowd waited, trying to obtain various methods to amuse themselves only a fairly little portion of them deciding to spend their afternoon elsewhere. The players were confined to the pavilion. A photo appeared in the newspapers the next morning, showing the England Vice-Captain Gatting playing cards with the journalists. This picture perhaps told the story of the day. The first day of 1985, was just not appropriate for test cricket at the Eden Gardens.
The weather remained fairly substantially the similar the following day. Thankfully, Jan 2nd was reserved for the rest day. Yes, there made use of to be rest days in test matches in those days. (These had been the days ahead of the Mobile telephone, satellite Channels, World-wide-web Connections etc.. Factors moved (or, at least appear to move) rather slowly). The game restarted on the subsequent day amidst brilliant sunshine.
I was fortunate to be present at the Eden garden to watch this 3rd days play. Getting a ticket at the middle of a test match at Eden gardens was not easy. The tickets in those days used to be for the entire test match (five days), and expecting somebody to miss a day following getting a ticket was like expecting a person becoming invited in the royal wedding and missing it considering that his pet was unwell. Nonetheless, my dad employed his connection at Calcutta, not only to get a seat for me. In truth I sat at the members' pavilion, just adjacent to the players' pavilion. Not only did I get a perfect view from behind the bowlers arm, I could get a fairly close view of the players themselves.
As England went out to field, Gower looked rather thoughtful, but his deputy Mike Gatting looked highly relaxed and pleased. This was understandable. Back in June, at Lord's Gatting was out LBW to Marshall, playing no stroke. Lots of at the time thought this to be the end of his international character. Way more than 6 years after his test debut at Karachi, in Jan 1978, 81 remained his highest test score. It would possibly have remained his highest score if the selectors, in a surprise move, hadn't picked him as the deputy to Gower, ahead of Chris Tavare. Tavare, possibly angered the selectors, with his slow batting at Lord's against a depleted SL bowling, in August. But, maybe the decision was produced right after the Natwest final, also at Lord's, towards the finish of the summer. There, Middlesex, led by Gatting, won a thrilling final ball victory over Tavare's Kent.
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