In the headingley, there will be no wonderful record like falling 4 wickets on Team India, now this will be the first Test here.
The dismissed batsmen were Pankaj Roy, Dutta Gaikwad, Madhav Minister and Vijay Manjrekar. For England, Fred Truman took three wickets and Alex Bedser took one wicket and together destroyed India’s top order.
In 1899, on the same ground, the first four wickets in Australia’s second innings fell at the same score (34) but without opening the account, there is a memorable in Test history. Incidentally in November 1999, in Johannesburg, against South Africa, England was also getting almost the same, but the fourth wicket fell 2 runs then.
In this way, India has a record of falling four wickets at the beginning of the innings without scoring 73 years. The truth is that only after 14 balls the score was 0-4 and so far incredible and unique views shocked everyone in the cricket world. The 21 -year -old fast bowler Fred Truman, who was actually making his debut, was the most responsible for making this record. Seeing one wicket falling one after the other, there was an atmosphere like nervousness and some shock. When the reporter of Yorkshire Evening Post sent the news of this score to his newspaper office, the sports editor was not sure of this. He was surprised, asked the reporter quickly, ‘Is this score correct? Look carefully, are you reading the score inverted somewhere? ‘
It was Saturday and in the afternoon, 25000 spectators present in the headingley stands could not believe the game being held. In the same way, the England players were also surprised. Truman later told that when the fourth wicket fell in 14 balls, ‘I could not believe it myself …’
His debut story in this test is also very funny. He was on duty at the Royal Air Force under the National Service and called him from there to play the test. The Group Captain allowed him to go on the condition that he would arrange Test tickets for the Group Captain and his wife.
India played a total of 9 practice matches before this first Test of the series and the score was 1–1 while the rest of the matches were drawn. A few months ago, India had won their first Test against England. The team was encouraged by all this. India batted first and scored 293 runs with the help of young Vijay Manjrekar’s 100 (133). He also hit 19 fours in a four and a half hour batting. The total score was not special but the bowlers brought India back to the match in which Ghulam Ahmed took 5 wickets. Ghulam Ahmed worked hard and threw 63 overs (24 maiden) for these wickets.
On the third day of the Test, when India started their second innings, they were behind 41 runs in the first innings score. England did not look at any special increase. Playing on this pitch together was gradually getting difficult. England had to play the fourth innings in the Test on it. Therefore, India was also accepting the possibility of victory. In this atmosphere of this thinking, everything changed and when 4 wickets fell on India’s 0, within a few minutes it seemed that the Test was going to end. Nobody had ever seen such a poor start of the innings.
The ball on which Gaikwad was dismissed by the bedr, only showed the actions of the pitch mood, otherwise the speed of Truman’s ball surprised everyone else. After this Hazare managed to stop Truman’s hat -trick, as the minister and Manjrekar were dismissed on two consecutive balls. Actually, luck was good, otherwise the score was about to be 0-5 and a hat-trick was also made. Hazare played a half-kock forward shot and the ball went straight to the leg stump to the inner edge of the bat but went close.
When the fourth day game started, India was ahead by 95 runs and there were 4 wickets left. England got a target of just 125 runs to win. England did not achieve this small goal easily and Ghulam harassed him the most. Finally he won by 7 wickets.
In his first Test, Truman took 7 wickets for 166 runs. According to a report, before the commencement of the Test, Truman, who was playing his 39th Test with a great confidence, said, “If you stop them at one end, I will dismiss him.” See what he did in the second innings:
Ball number 2, bowler Truman: Top Edge and Dennis Competon caught in the first slip (0–1) in Pankaj Roy’s attempt.
Ball number 10 bowler bedser: Dutta Gaikwad to length ball, which they could not withstand and easy catch (0-2).
Ball number 13, bowler Truman: Wicketkeeper Madhav Minister’s middle stump blown into the air (0-3).
Ball number 14, bowler Truman: Manjrekar shocked the ball rapidly, the ball went to the leg stump in an attempt to drive a cover in nervousness (0-4). This was Truman’s third wicket in 8 balls.
Till date, a big question has not been answered that during the sudden fall of wickets, why did India suddenly change the batting order? After three wickets fell, the next batsman was captain and the team’s most experienced player Vijay Hazare. When the minister was returning to the pavilion, he was surprised to see that Vijay Manjrekar is going to the crease, not Vijay Hazare, a 20 -year -old, playing his third Test. The captain changed the order of batting and decided to play down himself, which many experts called his cowardice. The captain should have handled the front himself. A few years later, in an interview, Madhav Minister said, “When Manjrekar returned to the pavilion in front of me, I still remember that his face was yellow.”
‘He angrily looked at me and bumbled in Marathi,’ Mala Bakra Banola (I have made me a goat of sacrifice), the minister said.
The minister further said, ‘Hazare wanted to avoid the pressure made from a score of 3 at 0 and hence Manjrekar was sent to bat before himself. In this way, what he did to save himself should not have happened.
However, it was not an advantage and when Manjrekar was out, the score was also 0. At that time, the first professional cricketer Lane Hutton, the first professional cricketer to become the captain of England, told his players, pointing to the scoreboard, “Look at it well, there will never be another chance to see such a score in Test cricket.”
What happened after the test?
* India’s manager Pankaj Gupta admitted that his players were scared of Truman. He told Yorkshire Post, “This Truman has made him frightened.”
* Truman did not even get a chance to celebrate his best debut. He got an order to immediately leave for RAF duty. RAF cricket team Holland
And was on a tour to Germany and got an order to join the team directly. For the second Test at Lord’s, he left from Germany in the evening two days before the Test, traveling from bus, train, ferry, taxi, another train and taxi, reached the team hotel in London at 8.15 am from the Test at 8.15 pm.
* There was an atmosphere of depression in the Indian camp. Pankaj Gupta and Hazare spoke to the BCCI and only then included Veenu Mankad in the team for the remaining Test of the series.
* Truman took 29 wickets in 4 Tests of the series.
* England won the series 3–0. The rains in the oval saved India from whitewash.
