Xtra Time Web Desk: August 24 will forever remain a historic day in Indian cricket as it was on this day in 1971 Ajit Wadekar led India registered its maiden test series win over England. It has been 50 years since that famous series win when India beat England in the third and final Test by four wickets at the Kensington Oval, to clinch the series 1-0.
Celebrating the occasion BCCI shared a small video of Team India Head Coach Ravi Shastri reminiscing his memories of that epic series win.
There was an air of expectation as earlier in the year India defeated West Indies in West Indies. Electing to bat first, England rode on brilliant knocks from Alan Knott(90), John Jameson(82) and Richard Hutton(81) to post a massive 355. In reply, Dilip Sardesai(54) and Farokh Engineer(59) scored half-centuries with skipper Wadekar making a valiant 133-ball 48 to take India’s total to 284.
In the second innings England batsmen were bamboozled by the spin bowling of Bhagwath Chandrasekhar as he took six wickets for 38 runs. S Venkataraghavan took the important wickets of Alan Knot and Basil D’Oliveira while Bishan Singh Bedi accounted for Derek Underwood. England were bowled out for for only 101 runs setting India a victory target of 173 runs to win.
India had a poor start in the second innings with Sunil Gavaskar getting dismissed for a duck. India were 76/2 at stumps on Day 4, still needing 97 runs on the final day with 8 wickets in hand. Captain Ajit Wadekar was not out on 45* while Dilip Sardesai was batting on 13*.
The fifth day began on a disastrous note for the visitors as Wadekar ran himself out in the second over of the day with the score still at 76 for two. But Dilip Sardesai(40) and Gundappa Viswanath(33) stitched a valuable partnership of 48 runs in 95 minutes, to bring the target to under 50 from the goal.
England picked two quick wickets as Dilip Sardesai and Eknath Solkar were dismissed in quick succession. At lunch, India was 146 for 5. Farokh Engineer played a valuable knock of 28 not out to take the team home to script a historic maiden test and series win on English soil.