Wickets fell regularly at the other end but Ganguly not only stood firm but continued to play with gay abandon driving, cutting...
Fourteen Indian batsmen have scored a century in their first Test. The feat has been performed eight times at home and six times abroad. And given the overall record of Indian batsmen abroad there can be little doubt that achieving the feat away from familiar wicket and weather conditions at home constitutes the more significant contribution. And when one considers the background and circumstances two of these 14 stand out however notable the feats of the other 12 might be. I refer to the only two Indian batsmen who have made centuries in their first Test that game being played in England.
Abbas Ali Baig while being the fourth Indian batsman to get a hundred in his first Test was the first to do so in an away Test. And the dramatic background leading to the feat embellishes it and gives it a romantic touch. Baig had started his first class career playing for Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy as a 16-year-old in 1955-56. In 1959 he was a freshman at Oxford University but had already made a name for himself as a stroke player par excellence. In the meantime the touring Indian team was going from one setback to another. They had already lost the first three matches of the five-Test series and had had fared badly in the first class games. They had their share of injuries most disastrously the one involving Vijay Manjrekar. The leading batsman had a knee problem and after playing in the first two Tests had to undergo knee surgery.
This story is from the July 2016 edition of Cricket Today.
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This story is from the July 2016 edition of Cricket Today.
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