Nine wickets, not ten

India arrived in England in 1974 as, by most readings, the best side in the world. They had won in the Caribbean, won in England, and beaten England at home three years running.

At Lord's they were asked to follow on, 327 behind. They lasted seventeen overs.

The scale of it

England had made 629. Dennis Amiss made 188, Mike Denness 118, Tony Greig 106. Bishan Bedi bowled 64.2 overs and took 6 for 226, a set of figures that describes a long weekend rather than a spell.

Erapalli Prasanna bowled 51 overs for 166. Between them, the two greatest spinners India has produced sent down 115 overs in a single innings, conceded 392 runs and took eight wickets.

India replied with 302, which against 629 is a competent innings. Gavaskar and Engineer opened with 131. Engineer made 86, Gundappa Viswanath 52, Gavaskar 49. They followed on and reached the close of the third day at two without loss.

Sunday was the rest day.

Monday morning

Engineer was leg before to Geoff Arnold in the third over for nought. Ajit Wadekar, the captain, was bowled by Chris Old in the fourth for 3. Viswanath edged Arnold to Alan Knott in the fifth. Brijesh Patel edged Arnold to Knott in the sixth.

Fourteen for four, and the morning was twenty minutes old.

Gavaskar made 5 before Arnold had him leg before. Syed Abid Ali edged Old to Knott. Madan Lal was caught by Mike Hendrick off Old. Erapalli Prasanna was bowled by Old. Bedi was bowled by Old first ball.

Old's figures were 8–3–21–5. Arnold's were 8–1–19–4. Hendrick bowled one over for two runs and was not required again.

Full scorecard: England v India, 2nd Test, Lord’s, 20–24 June 1974 →

Nine wickets

Eknath Solkar was 18 not out at the other end and top-scored. Extras contributed nothing.

And the innings ended on nine wickets, because there was no tenth. Bhagwath Chandrasekhar is listed at number eleven with no score, no balls faced and no dismissal. Against his name the card reads absent hurt. He had damaged a finger fielding, and when Bedi was bowled there was nobody left to walk out.

India's lowest Test total stood for forty-six years, until Adelaide. For all of that time it was a number that had never finished being made. Not the score of a side bowled out, but the score of a side that ran out of available batters.

The comparison that does the damage is inside the same match. Gavaskar and Engineer put on 131 for the first wicket on the Friday. On the Monday the same two men made 5 and 0, and India were five down for 25.

Nothing had changed except the weather and four days. The bowlers were the same bowlers. The ground was the same ground. Arnold and Old had taken five wickets between them in the first innings and took nine in the second, in seventeen overs, for 40 runs.

What the tour became

India lost the series 3–0. The side that had been the best in the world eight months earlier did not win a Test in England again for twelve years.

Wadekar never played another Test. He was removed as captain within weeks of getting home, and the selectors who had built the team that won in 1971 dismantled it inside a summer.

The part nobody explains

Seventeen overs is not enough time for a theory. The pitch was overcast and humid on the Monday morning and Old and Arnold bowled well, and that is the whole of the available explanation for the collapse of a side that had made 302 on the same ground four days earlier.

What the record shows is 42, and a blank line at number eleven where a batter should be.

••••••

No. 5 in Collapse, a series of 5.

TomorrowNineteen off six