India now faced Sri Lanka at home- the first three of the last of the eight test matches Sunil Gavaskar was to play. This was Sri Lanka’s first full away series against India. Surprisingly, India was yet to beat them in a test while suffering a lone defeat.
The first test at Kanpur was again a high scoring draw. Sri Lanka scored 400 plus and then India piled on runs as a batting practice session. Gavaskar got a hundred, but Vengsarkar missed a chance when he hit a friendly full toss straight to a fielder. Azharuddin, however, did not miss the chance, and marched inexorably towards a double. First, putting massive runs with Gavaskar, and then with Kapil Dev, who, like Azharuddin, scored his highest test score.
During the last moments of the test, in an anticlimactic manner, then not so rotund Arjuna Ranatunga spoiled the Indian celebrations when he trapped Azharuddin for 199. If I recall correctly, VK Ramaswamy was the diligent umpire, who raised his finger at the appeal. The match ended at the dismissal. A few years later, Ranatunga got Martin Crowe out on 299!
India dominated he next two tests, played on half cooked pitches in Nagpur and Cuttack. Vengsarkar was the star, who scored his third consecutive score above 150. Sri Lankan batting looked fragile for the first time. The so far mighty Roy Dias looked at sea against Indian spinners, who spun India to innings victories.
My favorite player at the time, Dilip Vengsarkar, scored big hundreds in the last two test matches. He scored his highest score too, 166 out of 400 on a dubious pitch at Cuttack(yes!), where ball was turning square from the first hour.
India won the ODI series too and with relative ease. But, in the first match, I think at Kanpur, they were shot out for 78, chasing a modest 200 plus total posted by Sri Lanka. It is hard to believe this happening today but somehow Sri Lanka had the knack of locking horns with the big teams, if India was one.
The last game of the series at Mumbai was a run riot. India batted first and scored 299 in 40 overs – then their highest ODI total. So, in one tour by Sri Lanka, India posted their highest scores in ODIs and Tests.
In the match, Azharuddin got his first ODI century while all other batsmen too got runs. Sri Lanka’s chase, as they had been in all their ODI lifetime so far, was spirited, and at times threatening. Roshan Mahanama led by scoring 97 but the chase was reignited by normally docile Asanka Gurusinha, who bludgeoned 52 runs in 30 odd deliveries. Sri Lanka lost by a mere 10 runs.
By the time this match was played, Pakistan team had arrived in India. It was an endless Indian winter which lasted well into the Summer. Pakistan was to play 5 tests and 6 ODIs. The tests were expected to be drawn since neither team wished to lose to the other, but ODIs were where India wanted to revenge their heart-breaking loss in Sharjah a year earlier.
However, India was rolled over in the first two ODIs without any contest at all. Sunil Gavaskar and Lalchand Rajput opened for India and please rub your eyes before reading this – India was zero runs without loss after…5 overs in the second ODI. For readers’ curiosity, Lalchand Rajput was a domestic Bradman, expected to at least turn into Viv Richards at the International level. And who could argue with Gavaskar? If he thought that the pitch and conditions are not conducive to scoring runs, even if it is a limited overs game and the spectators are furious and the captain is hurling expletives beneath the clasped teeth, he must be right.
A fading memory of one of these matches is the India’s wicketkeeper, Sadanand Vishwanath, removed a wicket to runout Rameez Raja. I was amused. Was it aggression? Later, I learnt that when bails are dislodged at an end, for a run out, the fielder must remove a stump while holding the ball.
The first test was a high scoring draw. The second in Kolkata came in news because Gavaskar refused to play there. He was abused by public the last time when England had toured. His replacement, another domestic Bradman, Arun Lal, performed admirably in the drawn test, in which Roger Binny shook Pakistan with his devastating spell on the late third day.
(Un)believable stat: Rameez Raja, a strong ODI batsman with 10 hundreds, scored one of his two, 56-test career, hundreds in this series.
After first four tests bored spectators to death, especially the fourth one, where Pakistan crawled to 120 runs in 90 overs on the first day, the fifth at Bangalore brought a heart wrenching result for the Indians. On a minefield of a pitch, India closed the first day at 60 odd for 2 after bundling Pakistan for 116. The match seemed to be in India’s pocket. However, two days later, India was left chasing 220 plus in the fourth innings. Sunil Gavaskar displayed all his heroics – patience, defiance, technique and stood stoic as Batsmen fell around him. At one point, he stood his ground because the ball had hit the helmet of a close by fielder before the catch was taken. Ultimately India fell short by 16 runs.
The Bangalore test loss was a triumph for Imran Khan, the Pakistan captain, who sensed that his Pakistan team lacked praise unless they won abroad. He employed all sorts of tricks in the second innings – he sent his lower order batsman upfront, used defense-first style of batting, accumulating runs through patience, frustrated Indian spinners, to set a competitive total. On a raging turner, he had already left out the great Abdul Qadir. But Iqbal Qassim and Tauseef Ahmed did the job.
In the remaining ODIs too, Pakistan proved formidable. After the humiliation of first two ODIs, India tied the third match but were declared winners based on losing lesser wickets. This was India’s only win over Pakistan in a run of 16 matches which extended from April 1986 to October 1991. India had no strategy for setting targets or for chasing them and even in the final game where Manoj Prabhakar scored a hundred and Vengsarkar accelerated with a 40 ball 52, Pakistan chased the target of 265 effortlessly. It was a time when Pakistan had a firm hold over India, especially in limited overs format.
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