England vs. India, cricket
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Captains
Successful Indian Captains in England: 1971-2007
—Compiled by Vivek Krishnan, July 29, 2018: The Times of India
AJIT WADEKAR IN 1971
Millennials might be unaware of its significance, but 1971 continues to be a watershed year in Indian cricket, when the team notched up historic series wins over West Indies and England away from home. The man at the helm of affairs was the soft-spoken Ajit Wadekar. Appointed skipper in January 1971, Wadekar was confronted with a tough initiation into captaincy with his first eight Tests all away from home. But what followed over that period went on to establish Wadekar’s legacy in Indian cricket. While the first two Tests against England ended in draws, BS Chandrasekhar weaved his magic with 6 for 38 in the second innings of the third Test at the Oval before Wadekar himself contributed 45 useful runs in their successful pursuit of 173 runs.
Series result 1-0
KAPIL DEV IN 1986
If ever a captain laid down the marker for his players in the opening Test of a series, it was Kapil Dev at Lord’s. Kapil claimed 4/52 in the second innings, including three top-order batsmen in Graham Gooch, Tim Robinson and skipper David Gower, before hitting an 18-ball 23 not out in India’s run chase to win the Man-of-the-Match award and pave the way for the team to take a 1-0 lead. In the English camp, which was already without Ian Botham due to disciplinary issues, things went from bad to worse as Gower was sacked from captaincy. Kapil’s Devils simply grew in confidence and completed a comprehensive 279-run victory at Headingley to take a 2-0 series lead and make the third and final Test at Edgbaston inconsequential.
Series result: 2-0
SOURAV GANGULY IN 2002
Going into the Test series, India were on a high after their Natwest Trophy triumph. More importantly, Sourav Ganguly was at the peak of his powers as captain. Having led the team for a couple of years, Ganguly had successfully groomed youngsters like Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan under his watch while also getting the best out of the experienced pros. India lost the first Test at Lord’s, but registered one of their most memorable overseas Test wins at Headingley in Leeds, with Ganguly’s bold decision to bat first on an overcast morning illustrating his confidence in the players. The left-hander himself struck an elegant 128, but it was Rahul Dravid’s 148 at No. 3 that set the tone for the victory. In the end, there was nothing to separate the two teams and the four-Test series ended in a 1-1 draw.
Series result: 1-1
RAHUL DRAVID IN 2007
Rahul Dravid had found himself under tremendous pressure as skipper just a few months before the England tour after India’s early exit from the World Cup in the West Indies. It was the lowest ebb in a captaincy career that lasted around two years. But Dravid ended his stint by making amends as India clinched their first Test series win on English soil in 21 years. While he was not in prolific runscoring form himself — managing just one half-century in the series — he got the best out of Zaheer Khan. The left-arm pacer swung the ball both ways and created havoc, especially during the Test at Trent Bridge, claiming figures of 4/59 and 5/75. It was 1-0 for India. With the other two Tests ending in draws, it was enough for Dravid & Co. to seal a rare series victory in England.
Series result: 1-0
Tests
Tests won or lost
The Times of India
See graphic:
England vs. India Head to head cricket tests won and lost till 2013
Test series’ results: 1984-2013
The Times of India
See graphic:
England vs. India Cricket test series, 1984-2013
Totals
The Times of India
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England’s highest totals against India in India, till 10 Nov 2016
One-day internationals
India vs England: It all started at Birmingham in 1983
Boria Majumdar, TNN | Jun 23, 2013
India versus England in England is always a very special contest. And if it is at Edgbaston, there's always an extra buzz to it. With a huge Indian diaspora making Birmingham home, Indian supporters may well outnumber England fans on their own turf and, in many ways, nullify the home advantage that England would otherwise have banked on.
This is not mere conjecture. It has happened in the past, on June 14, 2009. India versus England in the second edition of the World T20. The setting, though, was Lord's and it was awash in a sea of light blue. It did not stop there. Just as Paul Collingwood's side came out for a pre-match warm-up at the Nursery Ground, they were booed and jeered by a section of the crowd.
Imagine. England, the home team, booed at the home of English cricket. With something similar, if not a more aggressive version of this behaviour expected this time round in Birmingham, it is time to look closely at the highlights of one of world cricket's most intense ODI rivalries, especially on English soil. Though India played their first Test in England in 1932, it was only from 1971 that the real India-England rivalry began, with the lowly regarded Indians winning a Test series in England, beating them at the Oval.
The rivalry has since grown in intensity and British Asian support for India clearly rankles with the locals. For this lot, British Asian support for India is unequivocally an act of 'betrayal'. But for the Indians in the UK supporting India in cricket is only natural. Here's a look at the matches that built this rivalry...
1983: The miracle at Birmingham
Even the most ardent Indian fan saw it as only a dream. Some dreams, however, do come true. It had been hard for English cricket writers to take the Indian team seriously. India's victory over Australia at Chelmsford in the last group game was considered a marvellous piece of luck for England, giving them a virtual 'passport' to the final. Or so declared John Thickness in the Standard. Similarly, for Mathew Engel of the Guardian, there was no rational explanation for India's triumph over Australia. However, sometimes rationale gives way to romance and India, 40-1 rank outsiders with the bookmakers pre-tournament, scripted a fairytale, thrashing England on June 22 with 32 balls to spare, thus entering the final of the World Cup. The Pomms had been crushed and Kapil Dev's team was on the verge of creating history.
1986: Time to flex muscles
Never before had an Indian team acquitted itself better than Kapil Dev's men; it beat England in both the Texaco One-day and the Cornhill five-day series. This was one of Indian cricket's best overseas victories of all time, comparable only in importance to what had been achieved in 1971. Though the One-day series was tied 1-1, India won the trophy by virtue of a faster scoring rate.
1990: Two big wins
Though India lost the Test series 0-1, Azhar's team won the ODI series 2-0. In the second match, England did well to post a target of 281 with Robin Smith scoring a hundred. At one point, India needed 145 off 20 overs to close out the match. Tendulkar played a good cameo, scoring a quick 31 of 26 balls and was dismissed with the score on 249 with just 33 more to win. India won the match, with Azhar remaining unbeaten on 63, and closed out the series 2-0.
1999: A World Cup encounter
Despite the team failing to deliver in the Super Six, three snapshots from the tournament dazzle to this day. One, Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 140 against Kenya just days after his father's demise kept India alive after two straight losses. The second was the record partnership of 318 runs between Sourav Ganguly (183) and Rahul Dravid (145) against Sri Lanka, which saw India post their then-highest ODI total. And the third was the victory over England at Edgbaston, scripted by Ganguly and Kumble in a match played over two days. Ganguly, commentating this time around, remembers the match fondly and is hoping for an encore in the final.
2002: Kaif-Yuvraj show
The new millennium brought new promise and, in the summer of 2002 in England, Team India witnessed a new resurgence. Led by one of their best captains in Sourav Ganguly, two of their best all-time batsmen in Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, two world-class spinners in Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh and a couple of fast bowlers who could exploit the conditions, India were suddenly a team to reckon with. However, the stars of the NatWest final were two youngsters, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif, who from a hopeless position of 146-5 propelled the team to victory chasing down an imposing English total of 325. The match will forever be remembered for Ganguly's frenetic celebrations on the Lord's balcony, something he is slightly embarrassed about these days.
2007: India edged out 3-4
Indian cricket got back on track in the summer of 2007 when the Indians registered a rare away-series win in England. Zaheer Khan was the new spearhead and had established himself as one of the best exponents of swing bowling. This was surely Rahul Dravid's high point as the captain of the Indian team. The One-day series was also closely fought with the Indians losing out 3-4 in the end. Down 1-3, the Indians came back really well and levelled the series 3-3 before some dubious decisions in the final One-dayer cost them the series.
2011: The humbling and after
The horror of the four straight Test match defeats on English soil began with the mauling at Lord's in July 2011. Zaheer Khan hobbling back with a bad hamstring on the first day of the tour was a sign of things to come. Skipper Dhoni summed it up nicely when he said everything that could go wrong went wrong in England in July-August 2011. India went on to lose the ODI series too 0-3 and went back without winning a single match on English soil.
India’s performance on English soil
1983-2013: successes
K Shriniwas Rao | A HAPPY HUNTING GROUND | May 30 2017 : The Times of India
Indians Love Playing In England, Having Won Three Big Ones There 1983 WC, 2002 NatWest Trophy & 2013 Champions Trophy.
The start of the summer is also when India's otherwise discernible karmic connection with England begins to include sport (read: cricket).
Be it the World Cup of 1983, the NatWest thriller in 2002 or the Champions Trophy in 2013 they've all come India's way in the early half of the English summer. The 50-over format, played under the sun, is where India have found most of their success on English soil. Rid of damp pitches, the grass drier and with the wind behaving relatively better, the white Kookaburra doesn't quite create the kind of havoc as does the red Dukes in England.
The 2013 Champions Trophy performance that India dished out, before going on to win the tournament with a dominating performance, is the most recent case in point.
The white Kookaburra from the point of release to it reaching the batsman makes straight lines and not the kind of banana curves that batsmen often get terrified of in England. Generally accustomed to better use of feet and being in just the kind of touch you need to be in for success in shorter formats, India won easily the last time.
Back in 2013, there was rain in patches, no doubt. The match be tween India and Pakistan almost got washed away . The final too was a heavily curtailed one. Yet, thanks to the hovercraft and some excellent rain cover pitch protection, matches were completed despite interruption.
Dryness works for Indian cricketers anywhere in the world. The ball stays low. Come to think of it, New Zealand a team that should typically enjoy English conditions the most ended up using a minimum of two and a maximum of three spinners in each game that Champions Trophy .
Seam friendly England? It didn't appear so, when an in form Shikhar Dhawan topped the score charts with 363 runs from five innings, two hundreds and a halfcentury included.
Nasser Hussain, doing commentary in Cardiff when Dhawan took South Africa to the cleaners early in the tournament, had no doubts whatsoever that MS Dhoni & Co. were the side to beat.
“In Jadeja, Rohit and Shikhar, India's got just the kind of strength that's going to work here,“ he said.
He was right. Jadeja ended up becoming the tournament's MVP while Rohit Sharma ended up becoming the fourth highest scorer after Dhawan, Trott and the immensely experienced Kumar Sangakkara. Farokh Engineer, an Indian who's more English than most at cricket, believes “the summer works for India perfectly. It's just the kind of conditions they enjoy .Tell me, coming from India, who wouldn't enjoy the English summer. It's lovely playing cricket here,“ he says.
Engineer, 79 [in 2017], was still in his 40s, only seven years post his retirement from First Class cricket at Lancashire, when India glori ously won the World Cup in 1983.“Even back then, we had the players who could match teams like the West Indies in charisma. Kapil, Jimmy (Amarnath), Sri (Srikkanth) they were go-getters,“ Engineer recollects.
England, favourites at the 2013 Champions Trophy by way of being the hosts and familiar than most with the conditions at play, fell short of that one aspect India was relatively successful at. They waited to score. India scored.
Rohit simplified this further: The Indian batsmen kept finding the gaps. They played free, played on the rise, played in the air. Most others typically avoided risks.
Hussain's commentary , in fact, took a typically English view of the proceedings. “Credit to the IPL,“ remarked the former England captain.
Even in 2002, when Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Mohd Kaif helped India chase a record total to win the NatWest Trophy , the relentless pursuit of 326 runs batting second was made possible thanks to a free-spirited display of stroke-making. Sourav Ganguly waving that jersey from the Lord's balcony ended up becoming the bigger picture of a side's mental framework that didn't care much for stated beliefs.
Spinners vs. pacers: 2002-2017
From: July 26, 2018: The Times of India
See graphic :
i) Spinners vs. pacers in England: 2002-2017; ii) Indian spinners vis-à-vis Indian pacers in England: 2002-2017
