The Adelaide
test has seen a new low for India. The Indian team in the race for the World
Test Championship victory has been shot down for 36 in its second innings thus
its lowest score in Test cricket. The previous dubious distinction was held by
Ajit Wadekar’s side of 1974 when it was dismissed for 42 at Lords. It too
incidentally came in the second innings. As an aside, Indians were known to
make great comebacks in second innings in the past. There was a saying why doesn’t
India play the second innings first. In the current test, India did go with a
sizeable advantage into the second innings. In a low scoring test, a first
innings lead of even 50 would be quite handy and chasing something like 200+ in
the fourth innings would anyway be difficult no matter the batting strength. Yet
India handed the match on the platter with a rather timid display against some
fine bowling from the Australians. No pitch would obviously be 36 all out pitch
and it must be to the batsman who miserably failed to make the mark. In this
context, it would be interesting to dig into the past into some of the India’s
lowest scores in test cricket.
India was
visiting England in 1974 with lot of hope. They had won the previous series in
1971 and later followed up with a home series win in 1973. Yet this tour was
anything but happy. The despair both on and off the field was perhaps too much.
In the second test England ran up with a score of 629 and they bowled out India
for 302 enforcing a follow on. What followed was some Old Arnold swing which
led India to collapse to 42 all out. Eknath Solkar remained unbeaten on 18, the
only double figure score in the innings. Sunil Gavaskar would later remark that
all England needed to bowl two good deliveries one to dismiss him and another
to dismiss GR Vishwanath and the rest of the batting would fold up in no time.
In fact, that was very characteristic of the previous test.
In 1947-48,
India visited Australia for the first time and incidentally it was the first
series post-independence. Indians were perhaps overawed by Bradman’s Australians
which had Lindwall, Miller, Toshack in the attack. The first test was in
Brisbane Gabba and Australia batting first declared at 382/8. Indias were
completely outplayed getting bowled out for 58 in the first innings. Skipper
Lala Amarnath made 22 while Vijay Hazare and Chandu Sarwate too crossed the
double figures. Indians asked to follow on did only marginally better getting
bowled out for 98. The famed batting line up which used to amass runs in the
domestic first class season was undone very quickly on the bouncy tracks of the
Gabba. Later in the series, India went to the final test at Melbourne seeking
to restore pride with series already decided. Australia ran up to 575/8 before
declaration. India did play well but folded out at 331 with Aussies deciding to
enforce the follow on. India simply could not handle the Aussie bowling in the
second innings getting all out for 67, incidentally with four players reaching
double figures. The series was lost 4-0.
India toured
England in 1952 and a debutant Fred Truman had them running at 0/4. This perhaps
is still the maximum wickets lost in a test match before opening the mark. As if
it was not enough, India had to face more trouble in the third test at Old
Trafford Manchester. India was dismissed for 58, equalling the previous lowest
mentioned above. In fact, of the 58 made by the team, the two Vijays Manjrekar
and Hazare made 38 of them. This was after England declared at 347/9 in their first
innings. The second innings again proved marginally better with India dismissed
for 82 with Hemu Adhikari top scoring at 27. Incidentally, this is the only occasion
till date that a side has been bowled out twice in a test match on a single
calendar day. The scores of 58 in both these tests discussed above were to
remain the lowest till India broke the dubious record with 42 in 1974.
In 1996, India
travelled to South Africa for their second tour to the country. It was a back
to back series with India winning 2-1, a three test series at home. It was for
the first time that South Africa had lost a test series since their readmission
to test cricket in 1992. Billed as
revenge series, India dismissed South Africa for 223 but found the South
African pace bowlers led by Alan Donald and Shaun Pollock too hot to handle
folding out for 100. South Africa again were restricted to 259, but the chase
was too tall to handle. Yet no one expected India to literally collapse.
Barring Rahul Dravid with an unbeaten 27, no other Indian batsman could handle
the pace on the bouncy track at Kingsmead and folded for 66.
In 1987, India
hosted the West Indies at home with the first test being in Ferozeshah Kotla in
Delhi. Against the West Indian pace quartet, Indians were dismissed for mere 75
on the opening day with Arun Lal top scoring at 20. Indians did well to
restrict West Indies and later set a challenging 276 for fourth innings win. The
West Indies won the test thanks to Viv Richards century, and it remains the
highest successful chase by a visiting team in India. Coming to recent times,
India was dismissed for 76 against South Africa in Ahmedabad in 2008 with Irfan
Pathan, skipper MS Dhoni and the extras adding some 54 runs of this total.
In all India
have been dismissed on twenty two occasions for less than hundred. Seventeen of
those test matches have ended in a defeat for India. There have been five
instances of drawn match. The lowest score in a drawn match was 83 against New
Zealand in Mohali in 1999. It was basically through 505/3 declared in the
second innings against a relatively inexperienced New Zealand bowling and
hundreds by Tendulkar and Dravid that enabled India to save the match. The lowest
scores in test matches by Indian sides are available here.
The current post seeks to posit the today’s performance against historical
background. The Australians outplayed India in the third innings and that was
perhaps all that mattered to the test and perhaps to the series as well.
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