Except for a couple of players, the England team lacked flamboyance, butthey remained dedicated to the task at hand
Partab Ramchand14-Nov-2012The England Tony-Greig-led squad that toured India in 1976-77 was thestrongest since Douglas Jardine’s side of 1933-34. Fittingly enough,then, it won the series in India, the first English team to do so in 43years. Virtually no major player declined to make the trip as in thepast, and Greig was fortunate to have a well-balanced side of batsmen,bowlers and all-rounders.
Except for a couple of players, the England team lacked flamboyance, but they remained dedicated to the task at hand. As true professionals, the players showed determination and a thoughtful approach, and this paid rich dividends. Greig’s charisma enabled him to extract maximum effort from his players.
Still, it was not as formidable a squad as the results would indicate.England won the first three Tests the first side to accomplish thatfeat on a tour of this country – and, although India came back in thefive-match rubber, the final margin of 3-1 was somewhat flattering tothe visitors. However good the visitors were, it must also be admittedthat India played a lot of bad cricket in the first three Tests, and bythe time they recovered, the series as a contest was over.The truth is that the home team was exhausted when the first Testcommenced at New Delhi. Just before the series started, the Indians hadcompleted a three-Test rubber against New Zealand and had put their bestfoot forward, winning it 2-0. The Indian players were thus already jadedand perhaps a shade over-confident.Greig, a tough competitor and never one to miss a chance to strike back,spotted the chinks in the Indian armour and exploited them ruthlessly.He saw to it that the batsmen were always under pressure, thanks to histhree-pronged pace attack of Bob Willis, John Lever and Chris Old, whoresponded magnificently. Whenever required, he and Derek Underwoodpicked up vital wickets with spin. The batsmen, inspired by theircaptain and elder statesman Dennis Amiss, played the famed Indian spinattack with a great degree of assurance.Except for a couple of players, the England team lacked flamboyance, butthey remained dedicated to the task at hand. As true professionals, theplayers showed determination and a thoughtful approach, and this paidrich dividends. Greig’s charisma enabled him to extract maximum effortfrom his players.However well the batsmen responded to the challenge of coming goodagainst the spinners, it was the bowling that played the key role in thetriumph. Willis, used in short spells, was very effective, and hefinished with 20 wickets at 16.75 apiece. Underwood gave the batsmenlittle respite with his accuracy and deceptiveness, and he finished asthe highest wicket-taker with 29 wickets at 17.55 apiece. But thebiggest success was left-arm seamer John Lever. Making his debut in thefirst Test, he had a match-haul of 10 wickets for 70 and ended theseries with 26 wickets at an average of 14.61.Among the batsmen, Amiss led the way with 417 runs at an average of52.12. His 179 in the first Test was vital, for it proved that theIndian spinners could be negotiated. Greig came up with his tacticallybrilliant 103 in the second Test at Calcutta, reaching his hundred in413 minutes, then the fourth slowest for England. Alan Knott as usualfrustrated the spinners, sweeping them repeatedly with his unorthodoxapproach. These three and the bowlers covered up for the lack ofdepth in the batting.For India, this was a series to forget as little went right for them.Their main problem was the batting; that there was only one hundred byan Indian in the series by Sunil Gavaskar in the last Test at Bombay best exemplifies this problem. Their totals in the first six inningswere 122, 234, 155, 181, 164 and 83. The form or lack of it ofGundappa Viswanath symbolized the Indian plight; in the first seveninnings, the great stylist was reduced to just 87 runs, and although hecame good with an unbeaten 79 at number seven in the fourth Test,that remained his only knock of note, and he finished the series with175 runs at an average of below 20.Gavaskar topped the aggregates with 394 runs, but for large periods hetoo struggled and did not bat very fluently. Brijesh Patel hit 286 runsat an average of only 28.60 but finished third in the averages a telltale sign of the fragility of the Indian batting. The inability ofAnshuman Gaekwad to come good, and the failures of Parthasarathy Sharma,Mohinder Amarnath, Madan Lal and Yajuvindra Singh in the limitedopportunities that they had, added further to the batting blues. Theinclusion of Surinder Amarnath for the last two Tests was a slightadvantage, particularly as a counter to Lever and Underwood.The Indian spinners suffered from the failure of the batsmen, who didnot give them the adequate totals. The bowling, however, was less aproblem when compared to the batting. Bishan Singh Bedi, baffled as hewas by the battering that his side was receiving, did not let thisinterfere with his bowling skills and took 25 wickets at 22.96, in theprocess bagging his 200th wicket – the first Indian to reach the mark.BS Chandrasekhar, after a slow start, did well in the third Test and wonthe Bangalore Test for his side with a bag of nine wickets. He finishedthe series with a haul of 19 at 28.26. But perhaps the best Indianbowler was Erapalli Prasanna who, at 36, still retained all his oldguile and control. He headed the averages with 18 wickets at 21.61apiece.A series played in a competitive but happy spirit, thanks to theexcellent public relations of Greig and Ken Barrington, wasunfortunately marred by the Vaseline controversy, in which Lever was thecentral character. The swing bowler was accused of smearing the ballwith Vaseline at Madras. The matter was taken up by officials from bothteams, and finally it was accepted that, though it was a breach of law46, the offence was totally unintentional and was not a directinfringement of the laws of the game.